Hanyou Trials
by Dragon Man 180
Summary: Sequel to Naruto the Kitsune Hanyou and first story A Dream Is A Wish. Naruto and Hinata have to deal with one of the biggest trials ever, surviving high school in Nerima with Naruto's evil cousins trying to kill him! Mega Xover including Inuyasha, Ranma 12, and Tenchi Muyo. Warning, OC heavy, but main focus is Naruto and Hinata. Naruto is well on his way to Super Naruto status.
1. Prologue

**Roar of the Dragon: Well here it is, the sequel to Naruto the Kitsune Hanyou and my first story, A Dream is A Wish. I recommend reading these stories first so you know about the characters involved from them. I'll try to keep giving the things my fans love: Fluff, great fights, and abuse of the characters that should be abused! I will be referring to Ranma as Ranma-chan when in cursed form.**

**Time Line: Takes place after the Tenchi Muyo OAV number 1 and the end of the Ranma ½ series, about 14 years after the end of A Dream Is A Wish, and a few weeks after the end of Naruto the Kitsune Hanyou.**

_My little brother has a question: What would you do if the Mafia came to your door in the middle of the night? The link to his webcomic is in my profile, go there and send him your answer!_

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Inuyasha, Tenchi Muyo, or Ranma ½. I only own the kids of the original characters from Inuyasha, Tenchi, and Ranma. I'm also an American whose only knowledge about Japanese education comes from anime and manga, so please be lenient if I mess up in those areas.

The Nerima ward in Tokyo was well-known for its outstanding weirdness level and having the highest concentration of martial artists anywhere in the city. Most of the weirdness could be attributed to the chaos that surrounded one Saotome Ranma, Grand Master of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu (School of Indiscriminate Grappling) AKA 'Anything Goes' and the best martial artist of his generation. From the time he was six, this man had spent ten years on a training trip with his father Genma Saotome. Ranma and his father had each picked up a water based curse on the final leg of the trip at a cursed training ground in China called Jusenkyo and now a splash of cold water turned him into a busty red haired girl while Genma became a panda. Ranma also had to deal with multiple fiancés thanks to his father, who had been willing to engage his son for as little as a bowl of rice, a fish, and two pickles. He had fought a dragon prince, a flying minotaur, an immortal phoenix god, and demons, plus the occasional obscure martial artist who wandered by to try their skills against the best.

Ranma had managed to resolve most of the chaos in his life by annulling the numerous engagements his father had placed on him and finally asking the only fiancé who had a place in his heart, Tendo Akane, for her hand in marriage a year after their disastrous failed wedding. With the revelation of Ranma's true feelings for her, Akane confessed her love and the two were married during the summer break before their senior year. A few months later, Ranma's mother Nodoka announced she was two months pregnant. She gave birth seven months later to a baby girl that was a younger version of Ranma's girl form and named her Ranko in remembrance of how Ranma was forced to hide his true identity from her because of his curse. Ranma's other official fiancé, Kuonji Ukyo, was adopted into the Saotome clan by Ranma's mother after her father disowned Ukyo for failing to marry Ranma or kill him and Genma and thus restoring the girl's lost honor from when Genma stole her dowry of a the senior Kuonji's yatai. Ukyo was consoled in her loss by her friend, the kunoichi raised cross dressing boy Konatsu, and eventually married him. Ranma's final fiancé, the Chinese Amazon Shampoo, was a bit harder to deal with. Ranma finally resorted to challenging her great-grandmother Cologne. The three hundred year old woman accepted the challenge that if she won Ranma would return to her village in China as Shampoo's husband while if Ranma won his family and he would be exempt from all Amazon laws and be honorary members of the tribe. Unknown to Cologne, Ranma had spent the past year mastering the deadly Neko-ken (Cat Fist), which allowed Ranma to become a cat in mind and shred nearly any thing with the ki-claws Ranma created using his cat side's natural instincts and the knowledge of how to manipulate his ki to shoot ki blasts. Ranma's training allowed him to overcome the cat mind and control the powerful technique, thus ensuring Cologne's defeat. The fight still took three hours with both fighters showing their full skills to everyone who gathered for the match. When Ranma won, Cologne kept her promise but was surprised to find her great-granddaughter wanted to stay in Nerima. Shampoo's longtime suitor and Ranma's former rival Mousse had a talk with Ranma and then challenged Shampoo for her hand in marriage. Mousse proved that fighting Ranma constantly was some of the best training available when he defeated Shampoo and proved his mastery of his Hidden Weapons fighting style. Pleased with how her formerly annoying suitor had turned into such a strong warrior, Shampoo eventually fell for Mousse and they were married a few months later. The only other major contender for Ranma was Kuno Kodachi and everyone agreed she was insane and Akane's sister Nabiki pulled some strings to get her committed for life.

Ranma's next act in seizing control of his life was to challenge Happosai, the perverted Grand Master of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu for the title of Grand Master of the school when the old pervert returned to Nerima a week after his fight with Cologne. Happosai had been out of town and hadn't heard the news about Cologne's defeat yet so he accepted. The battle was filled with technique after technique as the two martial artists fought. The battle ended when Ranma combined the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken (Chestnuts Roasting Over an Open Fire Punch) with the Neko-ken's ki-claws to overwhelm Happosai's defenses. With Cologne as a witness, Ranma was granted the title of Grand Master of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu. Ranma's first action as the master of the school was to force Happosai to leave the Tendo home where he had taken up residence much to the family's dismay. Happosai left but occasionally returned to Nerima to pester the inhabitants. Ranma's next act was to start training Akane in the Musabetsu Kakuto Tendo Ryu, which was the sister school to his family's Musabetsu Kakuto Saotome Ryu, with the help of her father Soun to finalize the joining of the two schools according to Soun and Genma's pledge made before any of their children were born. Ranma also helped the local chiropractor, Dr. Ono Tofu, master the Soul of Ice technique so the doctor could finally ask the eldest of the Tendo daughters, Kasumi, for her hand in marriage. After six months of being engaged, the two were married amidst great rejoicing.

Ranma's friend and rival Hibiki Ryouga finally managed to overcome his horrid sense of direction and find the Sumo Pig farm of the girl who had won his heart, Unryuu Akari, to ask her on a date. The two disappeared for a few months and reappeared in Nerima looking travel worn and happily married. Ryouga had looked over his life and found he had unfairly blamed Ranma for all his problems. The two rivals had one big fight which ended in a tie by double knock out. Ryouga went to live with Akari on her farm. This left Ranma's only real rival Kuno Tatewaki as Ranma's designated punching bag. The idiot kendoist had yet to figure out the truth about Ranma's girl form and proclaimed he would free his 'loves', Akane and the Pig-tailed Goddess, from the 'Foul Sorcerer Saotome' constantly.

With the chaos surrounding Ranma eliminated, life in Nerima became some what boring. Ranma, Akane, and Ukyo went to college together. Ranma still fought with Mousse and Ryouga when the lost boy wandered by while training his little sister in the basics of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu. Ranko grew interested in Kendo and started training herself, creating her own unique style. Then Akane announced she was pregnant with twins and Ranma's life regained some of its chaos, but not to the degree it previously had. The birth was just as painful for Ranma as it was for Akane since she nearly broke every bone in his wrist as he held her hand during the contractions. However when Ranma looked at his glowing wife holding their son and daughter in her arms all the pain faded away. Akira had his father's black hair while Miyuki inherited the red hair of Ranma's girl form with streaks of Akane's blue black hair. When Genma suggested taking the children on a training trip, Ranma-chan and Akane both pulled giant war hammers from Hammer Space© and sent the baka panda into LEO (Lower Earth Orbit).

For the next six years things were relatively peaceful with only the odd martial artist dropping in to challenge Ranma. But then Happosai turned up with a perverted plan. The former Grand Master of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu had some how obtained water from the Nyannichuan (Spring of Drowned Girl) and Maoniichuan (Spring of Drowned Cat) with the idea of mixing them together and creating a Maonyannichuan (Spring of Drowned Catgirl) into which he would toss a batch of puppies to get his own private catgirl harem loyal only to him. However, Miyuki happened to be passing by and started annoying the super pervert. The two started fighting, though not too seriously, and Miyuki accidentally landed in the kiddy pool Happosai had used to mix the Jusenkyo waters. The pool was destroyed and the water absorbed into the ground, but not without Miyuki being cursed to turn into a catgirl when hit with cold water. Ranma gave Happosai the worst beating the old pervert had ever experienced after that and helped Miyuki master the natural Neko-ken her cursed form came with. Unlike her father, Miyuki spent most of her time in her cursed form and was a common site to see around Nerima.

(0o0o0)

Ranma was nervous. The last few days had been quiet, to quiet. Such periods of peace usually marked a large amount of chaos about to enter his life. "Damn, I hope I don't have to fight Godzilla or another prince that decided to kidnap Akane," said the aquatransexual as he mediated in the dojo. The opening of the sliding doors brought him out of his trance and he looked up to see Akane holding a tray with two glasses of lemonade with a towel on her shoulder.

"I thought you could use a drink before you started training Ranko, Miyuki, and Akira," said Akane with a smile as she entered the dojo. Even though Akane was a master of the Musabetsu Kakuto Tendo Ryu now, she somehow tripped on nothing and sent a glass of lemonade flying into the air to land on Ranma's head. Akane stared at the beautiful red haired woman who had taken her husband's place, glad Ranma's curse had aged with him and matured, before handing the red head the towel so she could dry off. After sixteen years with the curse, Ranma had finally gotten used to it and barely noticed the change, even remaining in his cursed form for most of the day now and then. "Sorry Koi (love)," said Akane as she lightly kissed Ranma's cheek. When Ranma had been changed by a leaky roof on their honeymoon, Akane proved that she had fallen in love with the soul inside the body, no matter if it was male or female at the time.

"I don't blame you, Akane, the stupid water magnet part of the curse caused you to trip," replied Ranma-chan as she pulled Akane into her lap. No longer was Ranma's girl form shorter than Akane, she had gained several inches over the black haired woman and had the figure of a model. Akane blushed lightly as Ranma-chan's arms wrapped around her waist and the two leaned forward so their lips were almost touching.

"Seesh, get a room you two!" said a familiar voice. Ranma-chan and Akane turned to the dojo entrance to see Ranko standing in the door with her shinai (Wooden practice sword that Yahiko from Rurouni Kenshin uses) resting on her shoulder. Ranko had her hair pulled into a loose pony tail tied together with a hair tie while wearing a copy of her brother's typical short sleeved Chinese silk shirt and pants, only with a green shirt instead of the red ones Ranma always used. Anyone who saw Nodoka, Ranma-chan, Ranko, and Miyuki in her birth form would have sworn they were looking at four stages of the same woman's life as she grew up.

"I see the Saotome lack of subtlety isn't limited to the males," remarked Akane with a laugh.

"Hey!" yelled both the red heads before all three started giggling.

Ranma and Akane stood up, though Ranma-chan didn't relinquish her hold on Akane. "Careful, Imouto-chan, it isn't wise to anger your sensei before training begins," said Ranma-chan.

"Heh, you know perfectly well that we're pretty much even if I have a sword in my hand, Nee-san!" countered the younger girl. Ranko had found a trunk of old technique scrolls a trunk in her mother's attic one day from an obscure fighting style called the Albane fighting style that one of Nodoka's ancestors had studied in Europe. Ranko could perform amazing combinations of mid-air martial arts combined with attacks from her sword to overwhelm her opponents with this style and Ranma was always happy to help her work on a new move from the style since she was still mastering the entire set of moves.

Ranma-chan smiled at the implied challenge before becoming unusually serious. "Be that as it may, I feel something big is coming and we have to be ready for it. I'm going to work you and the kids until you drop and then some," she said. Ranko nodded, knowing that if her brother was worried the chaos was moving full force and Murphy's law was in effect. All three women heard the sound of the front gate opening and two ki signatures alerted them to the fact that Miyuki and Akira were home from school. Like their parents, the twins attended Furinkan High with Ranko, who was a third year while they were first years.

"Tadaima (I'm home)!" exclaimed two voices. A younger version of Ranma with a slight hint of blue in his hair entered the dojo with a catgirl in a white version of Ranma's usual outfit. Miyuki's hair sported two red and blue-black tiger striped ears while a similarly colored tail hung behind her. The lack of sleeves did nothing to hide the elbow length fur that ended in clawed paws at the end of her arms that made Miyuki so dangerous at close range combat. Similar changes had occurred on Miyuki's legs, resulting in her having to wear open toed shoes so her claws could be used in combat without her having to kick off her shoes.

"Okay, enough joking around," said Ranma-chan as she grabbed the thermos she kept filled with hot water in her weapon space pocket and poured some of the water on her now his head. Mousse had taught Ranma and Akane the technique after marrying Shampoo and Ranma had thermally sealed thermoses containing both hot and cold water in case of an emergency change in his. Hearing the seriousness in Ranma's tone, Ranko, Akira, and Miyuki all knelt down opposite Akane and him. "Something big is going to be going on soon so I want all three of you to be extra careful. I can practically feel the chaos coming," stated the Master of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu. All three of his students nodded and Ranma's face split into a grin. "Good, now let's get started…."

(0o0o0)

Later in the evening the current in town members of the NWC (Nerima Wrecking Crew) were gathered at the Neko Hanten (Cat Café) owned by Cologne. Shampoo and Mousse's daughter Li Na (Beautiful, Graceful) was attending a sleepover at the Saotome dojo with Ukyo and Konatsu's boy Kazuki (Pleasant Peace). Ryouga had unfortunately gotten lost on his way to the meeting, but luckily Akari had made it and was taking notes for him.

"Alright, Ranma, why did you ask us to get together on such short notice?" asked Cologne from her place at the head of the large table everyone was seated around.

"Earlier today I was meditating and felt something growing closer. It seemed to have the same aura of chaos that used to surround Nerima before everything calmed down," stated the pig tailed man. "I have a feeling the weirdness in our lives is about to return full force."

"Damn, does that mean the fiancée race is back on Ranchan?" asked Ukyo with a smile.

"Hell no, we're all happy with our families and I don't want to go back to the way things used to be!" yelled Ranma, a look of fear in his eyes as he remembered the four girls' antics in the past.

"Why should we be hurting one another if something is coming that could take all of us to defeat it?" Shampoo asked rhetorically. Over the years the purple haired Amazon had improved her Japanese and now spoke it fluently, though in times of stress she could revert to her old 'Bimbo' speech.

"Indeed, if a new foe is coming we'll face the danger together!" said Mousse. Thanks to contacts, Mousse had long ago discarded his coke bottle glasses and was now a dangerous opponent with his mastery of Hidden Weapons. Ranma swore he had seen Mousse pull a cooler out of his sleeves on a training trip and no one believed him until Mousse had to refill the cooler's contents and pulled it out.

"Yes, nothing can beat the unified Wrecking Crew!" said Akane with a smile.

A loud cry of, "Where the hell am I now?!" broke up the conversation.

"Ryouga!" exclaimed Akari before she ran outside to grab her husband before he could wander off again and lead him inside the restaurant. "Where have you been?" the rest of the group heard her ask as the couple approached the door.

"I think I was in San Francisco, I'm pretty sure I saw the Golden Gate Bridge before I turned the corner to get here," said the eternally lost boy. Ryouga's family was cursed with having a terrible sense of direction. Ryouga could go from Japan to America in the blink of an eye without realizing it and never touching the vast ocean that separated the two countries. Akari walked back into the room leading a tall man in a travel worn yellow shirt, a yellow bandana with black squares on it, and carrying a large back pack with a huge bamboo umbrella on top.

"You got back quickly this time, pal, I think this was a new record," said Ranma with a smile as Akari and her husband walked up to the table.

"Yeah, and no one tried to eat me this time," muttered the bandana wearer, revealing his slightly longer than normal canines. Like Ranma, Ryouga also had a curse. He turned into a small black pig that Akane had for a long time kept as a pet named P-chan without knowing it was Ryouga. Ranma had known but an oath to Ryouga not to reveal his rival's weakness kept him from informing Akane of P-chan's true identity. When Akane finally found out the truth a month after getting married to Ranma, both Ranma and Ryouga were in the hospital for a week after Akane got done pounding them with her mallet. The rest of the group quickly explained the situation to Ryouga and the fanged boy muttered something in a language none of them knew. "Well, I'll help if I can, just call and if I'm at the farm Akari will bring me here," said Ryouga.

"Good, now what are we going to do about the kids, because there's no way we can hide this from them?" asked Konatsu. Even after several years, the young man still dressed as a kunoichi most of the time unless he was taking Ukyo out to dinner. All the adults were silent as they pondered this dilemma.

(0o0o0)

"So what do you think has our parents all worked up?" asked Li Na as she scratched Miyuki's ear. All of the kids were gathered in the dining room to watch the first Matrix movie. Miyuki was purring quietly as Ranko and Li Na scratched her ears while Akira and Kazuki had their eyes locked on the TV.

"No idea, but I think it's big," murmured Miyuki, not wanting the scratching to stop. "Dad was real serious this afternoon and just warned us to be on our guard."

"Well, if this chaos is anything like the stuff our parents lived through then we know where it will hit us," muttered Akira.

"Yep, the place besides this house that saw the most madness is Furinkan High School," replied Ranko. Since this was the school Ranko, Akira, and Miyuki attended, they were understandably nervous.

"I don't know whether to be jealous of you three or relieved," stated Kazuki. The ninja boy was never one to go looking for a fight and always planned out possible occurrences ahead of time before entering one, though he would quite happily jump in to save his friends if they were in danger.

"I think both are appropriate," said Ranko, to which everyone agreed.

(0o0o0)

Kamiya Higurashi Kagome was also no stranger to weird events. On her fifteenth birthday she went to get the family cat out of the old well house near her house and a centipede youkai (demon) pulled her into the old well, which transported her to the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States) era of Japan. There she found out she was the reincarnation of a powerful priestess named Kikyo. She also met the inu hanyou Inuyasha who Kikyo had pinned to the Goshin Buku god tree that still existed on the shrine property where her family lived. Inuyasha saved Kagome from the centipede youkai, which was after a powerful jewel called the Shikon no Tama (Jewel of Four Souls) that had been placed on Kikyo's funeral pyre and reappeared inside Kagome. The Shikon Jewel increased a youkai's power and many youkai were seeking it. A short time later, Kagome accidentally shattered the Shikon Jewel with an arrow while attempting to stop a crow youkai from stealing it. The Shikon Shards were scattered across feudal Japan and Kagome set out to find them with Inuyasha's reluctant help, though they would gain several allies in their quest. First of all was the kitsune Shippo who eventually became like an adopted son to the pair after they killed the demons who had killed his father. Next was the perverted monk Miroku, who told the group about the evil youkai Naraku. They eventually figured out that Naraku was responsible for killing Kikyo and tricking her into pinning Inuyasha to the Goshin Buku tree with the last of her strength. Naraku also cursed Miroku's grandfather and his male descendants with a deadly Kazaana (Wind Tunnel), a small void in his palm that sucks up everything and would eventually suck up Miroku if Naraku was not killed. Naraku was also responsible for the destruction of the Taijiya (Youkai slayer) village where the final member of the group, Sango, used to live as well as the enslavement of her brother Kohaku. Together these comrades traveled Japan looking for the Shikon Shards. Naraku was also seeking the shards and eventually created incarnations of himself to aid in this task. Besides Naraku, the group fought against many foes including Sesshomaru, Inuyasha's older brother who was a full youkai and Lord of the Western Lands, various youkai, resurrected humans with hearts black as the most evil of youkai, and even the resurrected Kikyo. Eventually Naraku was defeated, but a wound Kagome got in the final battle against the evil menace allowed some of Inuyasha's blood to enter her body. This blood combined with a dream Kagome had and the newly purified and restored Shikon Jewel to turn Kagome into a hanyou like Inuyasha. The two were soon mated and had a daughter named Kimiko. The family was now living in modern Tokyo since Kagome's grandfather was to sick to take care of the shrine and Kagome had taken over the responsibility.

Kagome was sweeping the courtyard beneath the Goshin Buku tree when she felt the presence on the edge of her awareness. Since this was a pretty good distance and it wasn't moving quickly, she wasn't too worried, but it never paid to be too careful. The black ears on top of Kagome's head swiveled as they caught the sound of someone sniffing the air. "Do you sense it, too, Inuyasha?" she asked her silver haired mate as she looked up at his perch in the Goshin Buku tree. Kagome's thick black tail was twitching slightly, which was the only clue Inuyasha had that she was worried.

"Keh, of course I do, mate. I just hope whatever it is isn't after the Shikon Jewel," said Inuyasha as his golden eyes stared off into the distance. Dressed in a red haori and Hakama made of fire rat fur, Inuyasha looked like he had stepped right out of Japan's past, which he had in a sense.

"Don't worry, I'm sure whatever it is, you two can handle it," said a young man with brown hair as he practiced with a katana against a training dummy. At first glance this man would look normal, but a closer look would reveal nine brown fox tails sticking out of the back of his light blue hakama.

"I'm sure we can, Shippo, but I'm worried about your sister," said the black haired woman as she gazed in the direction of the park where her daughter Kimiko had taken her little brother Kiyoshi (Purity) to for the afternoon. Their youngest sister, Haruka, was currently inside taking a nap, which was why Kagome was taking the time to sweep the yard.

"Don't worry, Kagome; Kimiko inherited the best of both of us. She has my determination and hand to hand fighting abilities combined with your miko powers and accuracy with the bow," stated Inuyasha as he easily leapt out of the giant tree before walking over to hug his mate.

"I'm a mother, I can't help but worry about my pups, even if one of them is all grown up," replied Kagome with a glance at Shippo. The kitsune grinned in reply, his sword suddenly blurring as he turned the wooden training dummy into perfectly sliced pieces of wood.

(0o0o0)

"ACHOO!" the sneeze came from a black haired girl with a white streak in the middle of her hair as she almost tripped and spilled the sodas she had just purchased for her little brother and herself.

"Something wrong, Nee-chan?" asked a little boy with black hair and golden eyes sitting on a nearby bench.

"No, Kiyoshi, someone must have been talking about me," said Kimiko as she handed him his soda. The little boy nodded before happily taking a big gulp of soda with predictable results.

BRAAAAAPPPPPP!

"Ewww, Kiyoshi, you've been hanging out with Uncle Souta to much!" groaned Kimiko. Kiyoshi stuck his tongue out at his sister and Kimiko responded by whacking him on the head, careful not to hit the magically hidden dog ears they both inherited from their hanyou parents.

"Itai," whined the younger inu hanyou as he rubbed his abused head.

"Serves you right, you're lucky mom doesn't have a subduing spell on you to teach you manners!" retorted Kimiko.

Kiyoshi gulped, having seen his father dragged to the ground by the rosary beads around his neck on more than one occasion after their mother said, "Inuyasha, Osuwari (Sit)!" With fear evident in his voice, the young hanyou asked, "She wouldn't do that, would she?"

"If you were bad enough she might," muttered Kimiko, trying to scare her brother into being good.

"Nah, she wouldn't do that to me if she never did it to you even after you got into all those fights at school," said the boy.

"That's because all the fights I got into at school were because I was defending another kid that was being bullied! Mom understands that and approves of my reasons, just not my methods."

"At least you'll fit in with the students at Furinkan High School, that place is dangerous for normal people!"

"Exactly the reason I've been transferred there and dad took a job as the gym teacher. No one there would think it odd that I can shred a car or sense youkai. Heck, after people get to know me better I might even be able to walk around with my ears and tail visible!"

"I hear there's a cat girl living in the area, think you'll meet her?"

"Most likely, we hanyou have to stick together! Now come on, mom promised to make ramen tonight and I want to make sure dad doesn't eat all of it!" exclaimed Kimiko before pulling on the roller blades that had been resting by her feet until now. Kiyoshi climbed onto his skateboard and the duo was soon racing home to the Higurashi shrine. Kimiko barely won the race and was greeted by her pet dragon Flamie. The little red dragon had been saved by Kimiko and Shippo and had chosen to be Kimiko's faithful pet. Capable of transforming into a form big enough to dwarf a small plane, Flamie was Kimiko's favorite way to travel in Feudal Japan when she visited the past through the same well her mother had used to travel through time collecting the Shikon shards.

(0o0o0)

"Okay you three, listen up!" barked Inuyasha after dinner was finished and before Kimiko and Kiyoshi could escape to their rooms while Haruka was still enjoying her ramen. Both of the hanyou kids stopped and looked at their father, knowing when he told them to listen they had better listen or face extra tort… training time with him on the weekends. "I can smell something coming on the wind. It's a powerful youki. If I can smell it on the breeze from so far away so I want you two to be careful while you're at school or alone. You especially Kimiko, you have the Shikon no Tama (Jewel of Four Souls) in you and we don't want an evil youkai getting their hands on it. If worse comes to worst, jump through the well and stay with Miroku and Sango." Both Kimiko and Kiyoshi nodded before heading to Shippo's room to play Halo 2 with their older brother.

"Inuyasha, promise me you'll keep an eye on her at the school but not interfere unless she really needs the help," said Kagome as she wrapped her arms and tail around her mate.

"Don't worry, anything that she can't handle will meet Tetsusaiga. I'll be careful to let her make friends and solve her own problems," said the silver haired hanyou as he squeezed Kagome's hand. Kagome kissed her mate and gave him the smile that let him know he would be getting plenty of exercise in the bed tonight after they had tucked all three of their pups into bed.

(0o0o0)

Masaki Tenchi's life stopped being normal the day he released the dreaded space pirate and demoness Ryoko from her imprisonment in the cave on the shrine grounds his grandfather maintained. Ryoko's release was soon followed by the destruction of Tenchi's school when the demoness decided to take out her anger at being imprisoned by Tenchi's ancestor on the clueless boy. After being defeated by Tenchi's use of his ancestor's energy sword the Tenchi-ken, Ryoko vanished only to reappear in Tenchi's bed. However, Ryoko's release resulted in Princess Ayeka of Jurai, a planet that was the center of a galactic empire of the same name beyond the Sol solar system, and her little sister Sasami coming to Earth in their search for their brother Yosho, who had left Jurai in pursuit of Ryoko when she attacked the planet. It turned out that Yosho had sealed Ryoko inside the cave and was Tenchi's ancestor, making him part Juraian. Tenchi and Ryoko managed to escape from Ayeka with Sasami's help. Ryoko's ship Ryo-oh-ki then engaged Ayeka's ship Ryu-oh in a space battle that destroyed both ships, leaving the princesses stranded on Earth. Ryoko, Ayeka, and Sasami moved into the Masaki house and it soon became apparent that Ryoko and Ayeka had both taken a liking to Tenchi. The next outer space guest was Mihoshi, a Galaxy Police detective who came to Earth in pursuit of the space pirate Kagato. Kagato soon came to Earth to regain his control over Ryoko, which he had used to force her to accomplish his dirty deeds. Ryoko resisted his control and was taken to his space ship. Tenchi and the other girls launched a rescue, only to see Tenchi sacrifice himself and Ryu-oh to save his companions. Ryoko broke free and in her grief for Tenchi's death took on Kagato. Ayeka soon joined her, while Mihoshi inadvertently accessed a different dimension of the ship where she found Washu, Kagato's old teacher and Ryoko's mother, imprisoned in a crystal. The ditzy blond managed to free Washu but they could only watch in horror as Ayeka and Ryoko were beaten by Kagato. However, Tenchi returned from the dead thanks to the power of Tsunami, the goddess of Jurai. Blessed with the power of the Light Hawk Wings, large energy shields/weapons normally only producible by large Juraian space ships, Tenchi defeated Kagato and everyone returned to the Masaki house. After many other adventures that included a reunion with Mihoshi's long lost partner Kiyone, Tenchi finally stopped avoiding the issue and chose the girls he wanted to spend his life with. Ryoko and Ayeka's answers to Tenchi's question were so loud they echoed through out the valley for a whole day. The family lived happily together on earth with occasional visits from Sasami as well as Mihoshi and Kiyone during their vacations.

In a normal looking home near the outskirts of Nerima a family's dinner was interrupted by flashing red lights and insistent beeping from a device that suddenly appeared in mid air above the dinner table. A red headed woman glanced at the device and reached out to tap a command into the holographic laptop that appeared in front of her. "Hmm, my satellite detection system has picked up a large energy reading entering Nerima. This could be interesting," she said with a large grin on her face.

"How strong is it, Grandma?" asked a teenaged girl with dark spiky cyan hair and golden cat eyes as she fed a carrot to the strange little creature sitting beside her. The creature had light brown fur and the body and ears of a rabbit combined with a cat's head. This was a cabbit, a species that could transform into giant living spaceships developed by Washu. The most well known cabbit was Ryo-oh-ki who belonged to Ryoko and was currently visiting her friend Sasami on Jurai. The one next to the girl was her daughter Ren-oh-ki.

"I'd have to say at least as strong as you, Ryeka, possibly as strong as you are with one gem Ryoko," replied the red head.

"You sure, mom?" asked an older cyan haired woman.

"Don't worry, now that I've detected it I can track it! I am after all the greatest scientific genius in the universe!" declared the redhead.

"That's true, Washu-chan, but I sincerely hope this doesn't mean more trouble for us," said the only man at the table. Unlike the rest of his family, he had normal brown hair pulled back into a short pony tail. "I've had enough space pirates, monsters, aliens, and angry goddesses after me to last a life time!"

"Dear, think about what you're saying for a moment," said Ryoko with a smile. "When hasn't this kind of thing eventually impacted our lives? Ever since you released me from that cave your life has never been normal."

"She's right, Lord Tenchi, it seems that every powerful being that visits earth causes us trouble," said the purple haired woman on the man's other side.

"Yeah and I don't regret it… especially releasing Ryoko from the cave," replied her husband with a smile, "since it was because I released her that I met both of you."

"Well, I just hope whatever it is doesn't attack me at school! We just got finished moving to Nerima and I don't want to be accidentally destroy my high school like you did dad's, mom!" said Ryeka. Ryoko and Tenchi laughed sheepishly while Washu laughed until tears ran down her cheeks. Ayeka settled for giggling behind her hand, always maintaining her manners.

Tenchi Masaki was definitely glad he was part Juraian and the heir to the thrown to boot. It allowed him to marry both the woman who had won his heart, Hakubi Ryoko and Masaki Ayeka Jurai, though legally in Japan he was only married to Ryoko. Ryeka was the result of a genius idea from Washu that involved splicing the genes of Ryoko and Ayeka's eggs together to from a single egg, allowing both woman to be her mother, though she referred to Ryoko as her birth mother since the former space pirate had been the one to carry her and Ayeka was her auntie. The Masaki family discussed possible options for dealing with what might be a new threat before Ryeka went to her room to sleep, not aware how many things would change in her life the next day.

(0o0o0)

Three days later the topic of the three families' different discussions was currently walking side by side with his girlfriend as they followed a white haired man to their destination after getting off a train. "Jiraiya-Ojiisan, where are we going again?" asked a blond haired boy after his sixth sneeze in a row had finished and he glanced at the two tailed fox following him to see if he was ready to resume his place on the boy's hair. The boy's fox friend however refused to return to his usual perch on the boy's head and opted to follow him on foot. The boy was dressed in a black armless body suit with built in thin mesh armor covering his chest and legs. Dark blue shin guards protected his legs while gloves protected his arms but left his palms bare. A jacket with the back showing a fox head over nine tails arranged in a swirl. The jacket also had flames embroidered around the edges and went well with the boy's outfit.

"We're going to the address my old buddy Genma said we could find him at. I met his master and him during my journeys outside of the elemental countries and we taught each other a few skills. He taught me some of his fighting style and I taught him a few tricks with his chakra. Genma promised that if I ever wanted to bring my students to him the Master of the Musabetsu Kakuto Saotome Ryu would train them to be the best fighters possible. With Akatsuki after you Naruto, you need all the training you can get. The main principle of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu is just what it means, anything goes, and it is a very adaptable style. Genma was a master at mid-air combat while his friend Soun Tendo was a ground based fighter. Their master was one of the best fighters I've ever met and he beat me easily after I proved my skill by defeating Genma and Soun. The little troll was very devious and skilled. It's thanks to training with them that I'm able to survive one of Tsunade's punches," said Jiraiya, an old man dressed in Kabuki clothes with a large scroll on his back as well as his back pack.

"So we're going to spend the entire three years of our trip training in Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu?" asked the girl, who was wearing a dark blue vest top with a zipper in front that covered a white T-shirt, leaving a little of her belly exposed before a dark blue skirt without any side part covered a pair of purple cargo pants (think Tifa's outfit from FFVII: Advent Children except in the colors described and with a shorter back flap)

"Not just that, Hinata. Kyuubi had a few contacts she wanted me to look up to see if they'd train Naruto and you," replied the toad Sennin. Glancing at the map in his hand, Jiraiya turned a corner and led the two to a gate with a sign posted next to it.

Hinata blinked as she examined the sign and read, "Saotome/Tendo Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu Dojo. Challengers please use side gate." Taking a look at the house enclosed by a high wall Hinata was impressed. The two story house looked well cared for and the dojo was just visible to her right through some trees lining the wall. The three ninja and the kitsune following them entered through the gate and walked up to the front door of the house where Jiraiya knocked on the door.

Jiraiya grinned at the redhead who answered the front door and said, "I was told I could find my old friend the Master of the Musabetsu Kakuto Saotome Ryu here to fulfill the promise he made to me regarding our students," he said while staring at her very prominent chest.

The redhead looked at Naruto, Gishou, and Hinata from their place behind the Sennin before letting out a loud yell of, "DAMN YOU OYAJI!" She then visibly brought her temper into reign and said, "Please come inside, I think we have a lot to discuss." The three ninja looked at one another before following her inside while the fox jumped up to rest on Naruto's head. The redhead led the ninja into the living room, where a woman with blue black hair was just setting down her book and the two teenagers watching TV were peeling their eyes away from a martial arts competition. "Akane, please make our guests comfortable while I go phone a certain panda to get his furry butt over here," said the red head to the other woman. Akane nodded and the red head walked out of the room to use the phone.

"Please sit down," said Akane as she gestured to the table in the middle of the room. All three ninja did so, happy to remove their heavy packs. "Would you like some tea?" asked Akane.

Hinata bowed slightly as she said, "Arigato, that would be most appreciated."

"Miyuki, could you get the tea?" asked Akane. The girl reluctantly got up from watching the TV and Naruto and Hinata were surprised to see what they had thought were a pair of fake cat ears and a fake tail were real and moving. Miyuki exited the rooms without reacting to the two ninja's surprise, though her brother looked upset on her behalf. Miyuki returned a few minutes later with a steaming kettle and enough cups for everyone. By now the red head had returned and she calmly pulled a thermos out of no where and poured its contents on her head. The ninja stared in shock since the red head had suddenly turned into a black haired man.

Seeing their looks of surprise the man sighed and said, "It's a curse I picked up in China at a cursed training ground named Jusenkyo. It's a valley with hundreds of springs, each with the tragic tale of something that drowned in them long ago. When you fall into a spring you are cursed to take the form of whatever drowned in that spring last. I fell into the spring of drowned girl while my father Genma fell into the spring of drowned panda. Miyuki here fell into a swimming pool containing a mixture of the spring of drowned girl and drowned cat when she was six thanks to my pop's master Happosai."

"So you're Ranma?" asked Jiraiya. When the man nodded, the toad sennin shook his head as he said, "Genma no baka, how could you take your son to a place like that?"

"Oyaji had a bad habit of not thinking everything through first. His stupidity has caused me lots of trouble," said Ranma. He then proceeded to tell the curious ninja of the ten year training trip Genma had taken him on and his adventures in Nerima. Half way through the story, a panda followed by an auburn haired woman carrying a silk wrapped bundle Naruto recognized as a katana entered the room. None of the Saotome family members reacted to the weird sight of the panda following the woman so none of the ninja acted on their instincts. When Ranma was finished with describing how Miyuki was cursed he turned to the panda and tossed some hot water from his thermos at the animal. The transformation from panda to fat balding marital artist didn't really surprise the ninja. "Oyaji, do you know this man?" asked Ranma as he pointed at Jiraiya.

Genma nodded before saying, "This is my old friend Jiraiya." The two friends clasped hands and tested each other's strength. Jiraiya won hands down since Genma had gotten out of shape. "I take it these are your students?" asked Genma as he eyed Naruto and Hinata.

"Yes, the boy is Naruto and the girl is Hinata. Naruto's furry friend is named Gishou and he's extremely well trained," replied Jiraiya.

"Oyaji, Jiraiya-san mentioned an agreement between the two of you. You didn't engage me again did you?" growled Ranma.

"No he didn't Ranma, and I can understand your anger at our arrival now," said Jiraiya. "Genma promised my students would be trained in the Musabetsu Kakuto Saotome Ryu by the school's master when we last saw each other."

Ranma's body suddenly relaxed and he smiled. "Well, it seems like Oyaji made an easy to keep promise this time. I'd be happy to train them in my school!" said the pig tailed man.

"You're the master of the Musabetsu Kakuto Saotome Ryu?" exclaimed Jiraiya.

"Not just that, he's the master of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu!" declared Akira with pride.

"He's way stronger than the panda, Ojiisan," said Naruto. "I'm surprised that Ranma-san got this strong with such a weak teacher!"

"Respect your elders boy!" snapped Genma as his fist snapped out to hit Naruto for his insult. The golden haired boy rolled his eyes before ducking the fist and rolling away from the table and to his feet. As Naruto stood up, seven golden fox tails sprang out of a concealed hole in his pants while two fox ears appeared on his head. Genma was already up and throwing another punch, only to have the fox tails grab his arm and toss him outside into the conveniently placed koi pond outside. The panda surfaced with a roar and charged Naruto, only to see a yellow and orange blur rocket towards him.

Genma threw up his arms to block, only to hear a yell of, "Enokorogusa Tsuchi (Fox Tail Hammer)!" as Naruto leapt and spun in mid air to bring his eight tails crashing down on Genma's head. "Respect has to be earned, Jii-san!" said Naruto with his trademark smirk. Turning back to the Saotome family, he found them simply staring, not panicking one bit at his tails or ears. "I guess we have some stuff to explain to, huh?" he asked with a grin.

(0o0o0)

"Wow, your life sounds like something out of an action movie!" exclaimed Miyuki after Naruto, Hinata, and Jiraiya had finished their story. The entire Saotome family had listened to the whole story and Ranma was trying to figure out if Naruto's life was more interesting than his had been.

"Okay, tomorrow I'll test both of you to see what your current skill level is," said Ranma. "However, I have to lay down some ground rules right now. No using ninjutsu in public except during an fight, no killing except in a life or death situation, always defend those who can't defend themselves, always respect the talents of other martial artists, and keep the property damage to a minimum." Naruto and Hinata nodded, though both of them knew they'd slip up eventually.

"Do the three of you need a place to stay for the evening?" asked Akane.

"No, I contacted one of my publishers for the area and he already helped me purchase a small house for the three of us near here," said Jiraiya with a smile.

"Do you need any help moving in?" asked Ranma.

"No, we have all of our personal items already and the furniture has been supplied by my publisher for some special editions of my books," replied the frog hermit with a dismissive wave of his hand. He reached into his robes and pulled out a small notebook that he scribbled briefly in before tearing the page out and passing it to Ranma. "Here's the address and number, if you need to get in contact with me you can leave a message there if I'm not home."

"Oh, the old Aburakoji home, they had to move to the country due to Aburakoji-san's failing health," said Ranma.

"Well, come on you two, we need to get settled in and get some rest, you've got school tomorrow," said Jiraiya as he drained the last of his sake and stood up.

"School?" asked Naruto, clearly confused.

Jiraiya grinned as he explained, "Yes, Japan's school system is very good and you'll learn much that might seem useless now but could be very useful back home. I promised your mothers you would keep up your education, that's why you both had to read all those books and take those tests before we left Konoha. I've already enrolled you in Furinkan High school. You two will be interacting with other non shinobi children your age."

"Cool, you can walk to school with us tomorrow!" said Miyuki with a smile.

"I guess it will be interesting," muttered Naruto, clearly not happy to be stuck in a classroom again after graduating from the academy. The three shinobi and one kitsune made their way out of the house with the goodbyes and well wishes of the Saotome family following them out of the gate.

(0o0o0)

"Wow, your publisher really came through, Ero-sennin," said Naruto as he stared at the house Jiraiya had lead them to. The house was a two story residence slightly larger that the Tendo home, but it had a large garden with a pond that would be great for taijutsu sparing. The walls lining the property were Nerima standard, giving the trio of ninja some privacy. The inside of the house was nicely furnished, with the kitchen being at the center of the house. A family room, two bedrooms, a typical Japanese bathroom, and a family room gave the lower story of the house a cozy atmosphere and the trio eagerly explored the house before heading upstairs. There they found that most of the upstairs had been converted into a small training hall, giving them a place to practice if it rained.

"Alright, Naruto and I will share the larger room while Hinata gets the other room to herself," said Jiraiya as he decided on the sleeping arrangements. Naruto scowled at Jiraiya and quickly bit his thumb before flashing through a series of well practiced seals.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" said Naruto as a large cloud of smoke appeared around his hand. A nine tailed kitsune the size of a Great Dane looked around the room before focusing on Naruto.

"What's the problem, Naruto?" asked the vixen.

"Well, Kyu-oba-san, Ero-sennin wants me to share a room with him, but we all know he can be out late sometimes drinking and snores, so could you use a Mokuton (Wood Style) technique to split the room in half for us? That way we won't disturb each other," said Naruto.

"Very clever Naruto, I didn't think of that," admitted Jiraiya as he ruffled the boy's hair.

Kyu smiled and walked to the room Jiraiya and Naruto were going to share and faced the center where two support beams faced one another. One of Kyu's tails reached out to touch each beam as she said, "Mokuton: Itakabe (Wooden Wall)!" The two support beams seamed to expand, growing together to form a solid wooden wall that nicely divided the room into two smaller rooms just the right size for a single person. A few more uses of Kyu's Mokuton techniques gave Naruto his own closet and a sliding door into his room.

"Thanks Kyu-oba-san!" exclaimed Naruto as he hugged the kitsune. Kyu licked Naruto's cheek before she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Well, let's get everything put away and then get some shopping done," said Hinata as she examined the kitchen. They had all the appliances they needed, but no food except the instant ramen cups Naruto had sealed in several scrolls. A quick trip to the local market got them everything they needed and the group had a simple dinner before turning in for the night, eager to meet the challenges of the next day.

**Well, welcome to the start of a new story. This one has been in my head a long time, and I hope you all enjoy it. This story is mainly for fun, but I do have some specific events planned. Feel free to mention any weird high school hijinks you can think of that you might want to see happen. Also, anyone who has not yet submitted a classmate can do so at my new forum, just post in the Current Class Roster topic. But please limit your original students to the classes of First Aid and Driver's Ed. I have enough for the other classes already.**


	2. Trial 1: First day of High School

_Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Ranma ½, Inuyasha, Tenchi Muyo, or any other series referenced or used in this fan fic. If I did, NaruHina would be a reality and I'd be living easy instead of frantically searching for a job._

Naruto woke up the next day at seven when Hinata knocked on his door. "Good morning Naruto-kun, are you ready for our first day of school?" she asked as he sat up and stretched before yawning.

"Yeah, but I wish we didn't have to go to school, I had enough of that in the Academy," muttered Naruto.

"It is part of our cover," Hinata reminded her boyfriend.

"Yeah, I know. Now you'd better let me change, unless you want to stay and watch?" said Naruto with a smirk as Hinata's face turned red before she hurriedly shut the door.

"You shouldn't tease her like that," said Gishou as he opened one eye to stare at Naruto.

"Yeah, but she's so cute when she blushes," said Naruto as he started to look through his supply scrolls for the school uniforms his mother had ordered for him. As he found them, a scroll with the picture of a house on it caught his eye. "Oh yea, Oka-san said to read this when we got here," he muttered before opening the scroll. After reading it he got dressed in his uniform, hating it the whole time, and then ran to the center of the house, where Hinata had just started heating water for tea. "Could you move please Hinata-chan, Oka-san wanted me to do this summoning jutsu in the center of the house, which is this kitchen," he said. Hinata nodded and moved aside, allowing Naruto to bite his thumb to get the blood needed to activate the scroll. "Kuchiyose: Uwabataraki (Summoning: Housemaid)!" said Naruto before a cloud of smoke filled the kitchen before dispersing to reveal a silver furred kitsune woman in a yukata.

"Ohayō gozaimasu (Good Morning), my name is Hoshiko (Star Child), Kyuubi-sama has instructed me to see to the care and maintenance of this house so you can focus on your training and education," said the fox woman as she bowed, her six tails waving behind her. "I have traveled the world and know many dishes, and Kyuubi-sama herself taught me enough medical lore to handle typical injuries resulting from sparring."

"Alright, but I'm helping with dinners!" declared Hinata, she wanted to experiment in a kitchen without servants and chefs watching her every move and this was her big chance.

"And I'll help tend to the plants outside and with the yard chores," said Naruto.

"What are you two talking about?" asked Jiraiya as he stumbled into the kitchen, only to stare at Hoshiko. It was obvious that the alluring air all kitsune vixens seemed to carry had captivated Jiraiya if the bit of drool escaping his mouth was any indication.

"Snap out of it Ero-sennin!" barked Naruto. "Oka-san assigned Hoshiko to help us around the house, but we're not going to let her do all the work! Since I'll be helping in the yard, you can help Hoshiko-san with the shopping, you've got plenty of free time!"

"Now now, all three of you calm down. Hinata-chan, please get me some of your supplies so I can make breakfast before the two of you go to school. Jiraiya-san, you'll be helping me get all the fresh food we'll be using to stock up the refrigerator today," said Hoshiko. As Hinata brought out the scroll with their food sealed inside, Hoshiko proceeded to create a generous meal of Miso soup, rice, and some pickled vegetables. All four of them sat down to eat, with Gishou getting his own bowl of food to enjoy, before Naruto and Hinata helped Hoshiko with the dishes and gathered up their books and made sure their uniforms were on correctly. Naruto wore a simple pair of black pants and a button up shirt with his Hitai-ate disguises as a belt while Hinata was dressed in a sailor fuku with a black skirt and socks and a dark blue neckerchief covering her shoulders (Think of the uniforms from the 2nd Shippuuden ending).

"Let's go Hinata-chan!" said Naruto as he opened the front door of the house before making sure his ears and tails were hidden from human sight before grabbing Nenshousaiga and biting his thumb so he could smear his blood along the sheath. "Kitsune Hijutsu: Katana Tenka: Kidachi (Fox Secret Art: Katana Inversion: Wooden Sword), which turned Nenshousaiga into a Shinai that he secured to his back with a cord. Naruto then opened the gate to the property for his girlfriend,

"Arigato Naruto-kun," said Hinata with a smile.

As the two walked along the sidewalk, they saw people going through their morning routines. Restaurant employees were sweeping the front walk and putting out their signs to indicate they were open for business, the occasional motor scooter past by with a delivery box in back, people were going to the market for food, and as they proceeded closer to the Saotome house, more and more students in uniforms were exiting their houses to proceed to school. As Naruto and Hinata reached the gate of the Saotome house, the gate opened as Akira and Miyuki exited the compound.

"Ohayo Naruto, Hinata!" chirped Miyuki, while Akira simply nodded before jumping up on the wall and walking along it.

"Why are you walking up there Akira?" asked Naruto.

"Balance training, on this wall it's easy, but on the fences that make up most of the route to school it is more difficult. Dad's motto is to make everything a form of practice if at all possible and he did this when he went to school here," said Akira. Naruto stared at him for a second before jumping up on the wall behind the black haired boy.

"Why aren't you joining them Miyuki-chan?" asked Hinata.

"I don't want the guys to look up and be able to see up my skirt," said Miyuki. "Plus, as a cat girl I have perfect balance, I train at home on a small balance beam all the time so I don't need to constantly improve it like Akira."

"So what do you focus on instead?" asked Hinata.

"I focus more on speed and evasion, Akira has a better defense and strength than me. Together we're unstoppable and can hold our own against anyone our age," said Miyuki.

"That sounds a lot like Naruto-kun and me, the third member of out team, Sasuke, was well balanced in speed and power, so he could work with both of us," said Hinata.

"Well, by the time my dad is done with you the two of you will be so strong it'll take a tank to stop you!" declared Miyuki.

"What's a tank?" asked Hinata, causing Miyuki to blink before trying to explain a tank to a kunoichi whose highest form of technological interaction was construction equipment and the computers used to monitor patients in the hospital.

Meanwhile, Naruto was telling Akira about some of the Taijutsu styles of Konoha. "I use the basic kitsune taijutsu, Kaen Tsume (Flame Claw), which involves surrounding my fists with fox fire and adding claw slashes to my punches as well as strikes from my tails. Hinata-chan's clan uses the Jyuuken and can disable your internal energy network. Our teammate Sasuke uses a Taijutsu style depending on his enemy's movements. He normally predicts what their going to do, and then reacts accordingly. Rock Lee, our resident Taijutsu master, used the Gōken (Strong Fist) and focuses on breaking bones and causing external damage. He can also use the Lotus style, which allows him to exceed his body's limitations in exchange for intense physical damage after they do so. Those are the most prominent Taijutsu styles, though each clan has some form of taijutsu that suits their abilities."

"Interesting. I'd love to visit your village just to see these people in action," said Akira.

"Maybe someday you can, definitely after I become Rokudaime Hokage!" declared Naruto with a grin.

The girls had glanced up at the fence walkers and rolled their eyes at the obsession the male half of the species had with fighting before Miyuki tensed as they rounded a corner and approached a large school building. "Is something wrong Miyuki-chan?" asked Hinata, noticing how tense the cat girl was.

"There's this guy who really likes me that I don't like, every morning he tries to defeat me so he can go out on a date with me," said Miyuki.

"Yeah, stupid idiot doesn't understand she isn't interested and sometimes makes us late," growled Akira as he scanned the approaching schoolyard. "Even though his father has talked to him about this, he still wont give up. Dad says that Mom went through a phase like this when they were in school, but it seems the torch was passed."

"Wow, that sucks," said Naruto, as they reached the school gates. "Tell me, does this guy have brown hair, wear a traditional kendo uniform and carry a bokken?"

"Yes, why?" asked Akira. Naruto simply pointed towards a figure charging towards them with a bokken raised above his head.

"My fierce tigress, I shall defeat you and you shall date me!" yelled the teen as he brought his sword down on the catgirl, only to have her vanish. A red and black blur appeared behind him as Miyuki delivered a spinning kick to the boy's back, sending him towards her brother, whose foot snapped up to strike the older boy in the chin and lift him into the air. A red, white, and blue blur suddenly appeared above the rising boy before a shinai slammed into his stomach, sending him crashing down to earth. The blur became a red headed girl the same age as the defeated boy, but looking just like a younger version of Ranma's female form and an older human version of Miyuki dressed in the school uniform. Naruto and Hinata were impressed with the teamwork the three displayed, though they were curious to who the new girl was.

"Glad to see you aren't late Ranko-nee-chan!" chirped Miyuki.

"Sorry I almost missed the daily Baka Bashing, I had to get a kitten out of a tree for my neighbor," said the red head with a smile before turning to Naruto and Hinata. "I'm guessing you two are the new students Ranma-Nii-chan is going to be training, right?" At their nods, she continued, "I'm his little sister Ranko, pleased to meet you!" before bowing.

"Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Hinata," said Naruto as Hinata and he both bowed. "I take it this is a daily occurrence here?"

"Yes, Shugo has never been completely there after his mother died in a car accident when he was little, so we tolerate his antics as long as he isn't stalking me," said Miyuki with a resigned tone of voice.

"The Green Flame lives on!" yelled Shugo as he suddenly leapt up from the crater the triple Saotome attack had left him in before turning to face said trio. "Well struck, all three of you are in fine form today!" he declared as he picked up his bokken. "But who are these two new comers who have yet to hear of my glory?"

"These are some of our father's new students," said Akira, "Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Hinata," while pointing to each.

"I see you are a practitioner of the noble art of kendo, maybe we can have a match later Uzumaki-san," said Shugo before his eyes fastened on Hinata. Naruto scowled as Shugo stepped up to Hinata and took her hand in his. "And would you pearl eyed goddess be willing to go out on a date with me?" asked the kendo user before he attempted to kiss her hand, only to find Naruto's fist smashing into his mouth and sending him back up into the air.

"Lay a finger on Hinata-chan and I'll give you more of that!" growled Naruto.

"Very well, we shall have a match at a later date to decide who has the right to date this beautiful goddess," Shugo said, only to have Naruto's foot slam into his chest.

"While she is a goddess, she's also my fiancé!" said Naruto. "She's not some sort of prize to be won in a contest!"

"Nevertheless, you are a student of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu, so you can't turn down a challenge," said Shugo with a smirk. Naruto looked towards Akira and Miyuki, who looked very angry.

"It's true, that's how he got us into these morning fights. Even though we've beaten him everyday, he hasn't accepted the challenge as defeated and we have to keep on fighting him until he does!" snarled Akira.

"His only mistake was challenging the Saotome School, that allowed me to join in!" added Ranko before her fist smashed down on Shugo's head, knocking the kendoist out so she could drag him inside.

"Come on, we'll take you to the office and get you your schedules," said Miyuki as the siblings lead the ninja into the school.

Just as the group reached the front door of the school, a black haired girl with a single band of silver in her hair came rushing into the school yard and skidded to a stop in front of them. "Could you (pant) please tell (pant) me (pant) where the office (pant) is?" she gasped out as she tried to catch her breath.

"Sure, just follow us," said Akira.

"Thank you, my name is Kimiko, Kamiya Kimiko," said the girl with a bow. The rest of the group introduced themselves as the Saotome siblings led the way to the office.

"Be warned, the principal is kind of eccentric," said Akira before knocking on the door.

"Enter," said a voice. Akira opened the door and the man sitting at the desk inside the office looked up and frowned when he saw Akira and Miyuki. "Did my son do something stupid again?" he asked with a sigh.

"No Kuno-sensei, just the usual antics today, aside from challenging our friend here, but these three need to get their schedules," said Miyuki as she pointed at the trio behind her.

"Ah, you would be Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuuga Hinata, and Kamiya Kimiko, correct?" asked the man, whom Naruto realized looked like an older version of Shugo. All three of the new students nodded, and the principal glanced at Akira and Miyuki. "The two of you can wait outside, I'll give you passes to class," said the principal. After the Saotome twins ad left, Principal Kuno gestured for the three to sit down in the chairs in front of him.

"This school was restructured due to the wide number of strange incidents here in Japan. The purpose of this school is to train the people who usually end up in the middle of strange situations, ordinary students, in the means to make the most of their situation. Whether that is training latent magical potential for a magical girl, passing down the secrets of the ninja to a student good at stealth, training a computer expert in hacking enemy systems, or even how to pilot a giant robot. Your will all learn skills here as well that can be useful in everyday life such as team work, computer skills, and food preparation."

"And here I thought these classes would be boring," said Naruto as he almost started drooling at the thought of learning new ninja techniques.

"Now, all three of you happen to be in the same home room, Uzumaki-kun and Hyuuga-kun, your scores placed you at three grades above your age level, while Kamiya-kun is at that grade already. Here are your schedules, please do your best to bring honor to your selves, your family, and this school," said principal Kuno as he handed each of them a computer print out. "You will spend the first part of the day in traditional Japanese schooling. After lunch we will shift you to more…exotic courses. Your placement tests included questions to determine which classes you would take, if you feel there is a problem, please come see me. Since you are all joining us as we start a new semester, you haven't missed anything important in the special courses, just ask your classmates for help if you're confused." All three students bowed to the principal and left the room.

"So we're in the same homeroom?" said Kimiko as she examined her schedule. "Looks like room 3-C…"

"That's our home room," said Miyuki. "Come on, we can get to class before Ninomiya-sensei starts the lesson if we hurry!"

The Saotome twins darted through the halls, not quite running, but moving fast enough that they left a wind behind them. Naruto, Hinata, and Kimiko easily kept pace with them, even when the twins bounced up the walls of the stairway without losing speed. The twins and shinobi were surprised that Kimiko was able to bounce off the walls like they did, but shrugged it off as martial arts training. All five reached room 3-C with a few minutes to spare and the twins went in first to explain things to the sensei while the three new students waited outside. After a few moments, an adult voice was heard saying, "The three of you can come in now!" The three entered the room to find their names written on the chalk board at the front of the room and a brown haired woman with a generous figure standing behind the teacher's desk. "Alright everyone, as you can see, we have some new students. Please make them feel welcome!" said Ninomiya-sensei. "Now, would the three of you tell us a bit about yourselves?"

Kimiko glanced at Naruto and Hinata before shrugging and stepping forward. "Konnichiwa, my name is Kamiya Kimiko. I live with my family at the Sunset shrine at the edge of Nerima. I'm in training to succeed my mother as the shrine Miko. My hobbies include studying ancient legends and training in archery," said the girl before bowing and stepping back. Hinata, who was next to her then stepped forward.

"Konnichiwa, my name is Hyuuga Hinata. I recently moved here and I'm going to be studying at the Saotome dojo. I enjoy training myself to be stronger and learning about medicine," said Hinata.

Naruto then took his step forward to speak. "Konnichiwa, my name is Uzumaki Naruto. I also recently moved to Nerima and I'm also studying at the Saotome dojo. I enjoy learning Kenjutsu and training," said the fox boy.

As he spoke, Naruto surveyed the class. For a Japanese class, they were a surprising contrast in appearances beyond the uniforms that were all identical to the ones worn by Naruto and Hinata. But several unusual hair colors that Naruto had only seen naturally in Konoha caught their eyes. The first was a girl with dark spiky cyan hair, Naruto could barely make out golden cat eyes since she was looking through one of her text books. Several youkai scents reached Naruto's nose and he noted them as tiger, wolf, and cat, though the cat was faint, probably a many generations descendant of a hanyou. The tiger scent came from a sleepy looking boy in the back corner of the room, Naruto could barely see through the illusion that hid the marks on his cheeks and forehead. The wolf was from another boy with black hair and golden eyes and a black leather jacket resting on the back of his seat for when he left school. The faint cat scent came from a purple haired girl wearing small oval glasses with dark eyes. The way she sat straight and proper reminded him of the daughters of various Daimyo he had met at social functions that his parents forced him to attend in full formal dress. A few other faces stood out to Naruto due to his ninja sense telling them they were definitely not normal humans. One was a pale boy with short black hair whose bangs managed to cover his eyes. Another was a girl with silver highlights in her brown hair, her blue eyes were evaluating the new students and Naruto thought she might have some experience with hand to hand since her arms had well defined muscles from what he could see. The final scent that caught Naruto's attention was coming from a tall girl with hair that looked like living fire and smelled of dragons.

Naruto was brought out of his analysis by the teacher instructing all three to take seats. Hinata ended up between the last two girls he noticed since Miyuki was in front of her. Naruto ended up sitting next to Kimiko and in front of Miyuki, next to a boy with Shaggy brown hair who Naruto hadn't caught a good smell of before. He smelled like a tiger, but more like the scent had rubbed onto him instead of being part of him. Catching Naruto's glance at him, the boy extended a hand. "Lazura Zenith, call me Zen," he said as Naruto returned the handshake. Zen had a very firm grip and Naruto grinned. The boy behind Zen, who had spiky brown hair, leaned forward slightly and introduced himself in slightly accented Japanese as Jason Kimball. His grip was also firm when he shook Naruto's hand. It seemed this school was full of interesting people. The boy in front of Naruto, for example, had his nose buried in a manga that seemed to feature lots of cars; Naruto caught the title as Initial D as he turned to a chapter splash page.

Kimiko was listening to the boy next to her, who introduced himself as Hyaku Ichi. The boy seemed to be a prankster like her adopted older brother Shippo since she saw several things like straws for spitballs, a hand buzzer, and itching powder inside his book bag. The girl behind her introduced herself as Shadowlily Violet.

Hinata meanwhile had met the girls to either side of her. The one with the silver highlights was Kasumi and the flame haired girl was Keimei. Both girls were apparently on friendly terms and were giving Hinata tips about some of the local shops and other fun places around town.

Hinako gave the class a few minutes to let the new students meet the people around them, then said, "Alright everyone, now it's time to start. We'll be starting our reading for this year from The Hobbit. Naruto, Kimiko, and Hinata, you three will need to borrow a copy from your neighbors…" only to be interrupted by Kimiko raising her hand. "Yes Kimiko?"

"I happen to have a copy of the book with me Sensei, it's one of my favorite books," she said as she pulled out a green hard backed edition of the book.

"Very well, then you can start reading at the part where it describes Hobbits," said Ms. Hinako.

Kimiko stood and cleared her throat before starting to read.

(0o0o0)

"Alright class, I want you all to read write a one page essay in English on how all the dwarves are related to one another," said Ms. Hinako just before the bell rang to signal the end of class. The students got to have a few moments to chat together before a black haired man dressed in slacks, a T-shirt with NIT on it, and a racing jacket walked into the room and grinned as he saw the new students after setting down his books on the desk.

"I see we have some new students to the school. I'm Morisato Keiichi and I'm going to be teaching basic science to you guys as well as physics later," said the man. "If you have any type of mechanical engineering problem at home feel free to give ask me for advice."

"Hai Keiichi-sensei!" said Naruto, Hinata, and Kimiko.

"Alright everyone, break's over!" barked Keiichi. It was clear he was a very relaxed teacher, and his lesson followed this example. He would do simple drawings to illustrate concepts and often told funny stories and jokes. Naruto and Hinata quickly realized he was like Iruka and honestly enjoyed helping his students grow better. The few times a student made a mistake when answering the question, Keiichi simply explained the correct answer and how the student was wrong in a way that wouldn't offend anyone.

(0o0o0)

The next teacher to enter the class was a silver haired woman with bronze skin dressed in a casual suit that had most of the boys in the class staring at her with glazed eyes. She seemed amused by this and even more when Naruto just glanced at her. "All right kiddies, it's time for Madame Oditer Urd to teach you the wonders of chemistry!" she said.

It was clear that this would be the worst subject for most of the boys in the class since they couldn't seem to focus on anything aside from the teacher's large chest. Since Urd would always walk up to the student she was asking a question of, she would bop the boys on the head with a rolled up chemistry magazine when they got a wrong answer. Naruto proved to be one of the few who could focus on the lesson and ignore the large orbs. Akira also proved up to the task, mainly because he lived in a house with two full time and one part time female members and was desensitized to the sight.

(0o0o0)

The last class before lunch was PE and the group went down stairs to change. Upon exiting the locker rooms, the students found that the boy and girl uniforms were basically the same with blue sweatpants and a grey t-shirt. Then they assembled on the school's sports field where they found a silver haired man waiting. He was dressed in a red jogging suit and his golden eyes scanned the students as they took a seat on the bleachers beside the track. "Alright, as you may know, Fuko-sensei had to take the rest of the year off for maternity leave, luckily she was able to finish the last semester with you and left you in my care. My name is Kamiya Inuyasha. You all met my daughter Kimiko when she arrived today. I promise that I will not show favoritism to her and she'd try to kick my butt if I did. I'll be making sure all of you are physically fit and get some exercise each day," he said.

Naruto raised his hand and, when Inuyasha nodded at him, asked, "What kind of routine are we going to be doing sensei?"

"It's really quite simple, I know you guys don't like running around the track or doing boring games, so we're going to be doing PE differently while I'm in charge," said Inuyasha as he walked over to a new looking shed beside the bleachers with the class following. He pulled the doors open to reveal two sets of vests and fake looking laser guns in red and blue colors. Inuyasha turned to the students with a grin and said, "You're going to be playing laser tag every day from now on! This will give you some exercise and be fun at the same time!"

"But where will we play Sensei?" asked the cyan haired girl Naruto had noticed earlier.

"The new building next door has been constructed as a laser tag arena," replied Inuyasha. "It's open to the public as well for company events, birthday parties, and things like that, but we are in charge of maintaining the building. We've got enough vests and guns so all of you can play at once in teams of fifteen. I'll explain the basics of the arena today and you'll get to play in there tomorrow. Just come in, grab a vest and gun, and I'll unlock the gate to the arena when we have enough people to get started." Inuyasha grabbed a green vest and gun obviously meant for him since it was apart from the rest and led the way to the arena, which was a two story building. "All of the equipment is made TK enterprises and they also supply the equipment for special forces training to various countries, including the JSDF. They've got some special toys for you guys if this program works out and the PTA approves."

The arena was about the size of the Chunin Exam stadium in Naruto's estimation, including the spectator stands. It featured several levels to take advantage of the multiple stories of the building and a base for each side (I'll provide a pic link in the Hanyou Trials forum topic Laser Tag Arena). There was plenty of cover available for advancing people and Naruto instantly started to formulate strategies for assaults. While he was nowhere near Shikamaru's level in tactical planning, his kitsune cunning allowed Naruto to come up with creative tactics like his Sexy no Jutsu and use of clones as distractions and disposable scouts. He noticed that the cyan haired girl seemed to be taking in everything just like him as well as Kimiko. The group listened to Inuyasha explain the basics of laser tag, how hitting the sensors on an enemy's vest or the single sensor on the front of the gun scored points, but not as many as shooting the sensors for the enemy base. Inuyasha then covered the few rules that would be enforced, such as no hitting anyone physically, no climbing on top of the obstacles (Naruto pointedly asked if they could jump over and Inuyasha replied that if they could it was fine with him as long as they didn't land on anyone), no pushing the obstacles over onto other players, and no blocking the sensors on the vest or gun. By the time the explanation was over, the bell was about to ring and the whole group was sent back to change.

(0o0o0)

With lunch break next, Naruto and Hinata got out the bento that Hoshiko had made for them and found a shady tree outside to eat under. Naruto's hidden ears caught several girls giggling at them as they occasionally did things like wiping up bits off food off each other's faces or trade bites of food. However, the happy meal was disturbed by a shadow. Looking up, Hinata and Naruto saw an upperclassman leering down at them, or more specifically Hinata. "Hey babe, why not ditch the loser and go with a real man?" asked the older teen.

"No thank you, now please leave, we're trying to eat," replied Hinata, only to have the boy grab her wrist and pull her to her feet, causing her bento to fall to the ground.

"Little girls shouldn't talk back to big boys," said the punk before he tried to smack Hinata, only to have Naruto's hand grabbed his wrist.

"Leave Hinata-chan alone!" growled Naruto as he tightened his grip. Even though he was two four years younger than the other boy and shorter, Naruto's barely controlled killing intent seemed to make him loom large over the punk. The punk released Hinata in fear and as Naruto let go of the older boy he gave him a shove that sent him backwards before he scrambled to his feet cowering in fear. The rest of the break went well, though word about Naruto's actions spread through the campus rapidly.

(0o0o0)

The next class for Naruto was Magical Awareness. He found himself walking to the class with Kimiko, who smiled at him. "I saw you handling that jerk that tried to hit on Hinata, nice job," said the girl.

"Thanks, it felt good to put that jerk in his place. I just hope there aren't any more guys like that in her classes, she'll put them in the hospital easy," said Naruto, causing Kimiko to stare at him in surprise. "Yeah, she may not look it but out of all my peers she's the best at hand to hand combat in the female division back home." The two had now reached the room for their class and entered the door together, only to have a mysterious force stop them in their tracks before tossing them out of the room. Naruto spun in midair and bounced off the wall towards the door while Kimiko used her hands to stop herself before charging the door from beneath him. Both slammed into the doorway and this time the energy couldn't overpower them and they were inside the room, where the teacher was just finishing rising out of his seat with a surprised expression on his face.

"Hmm, never seen the wards do that before," said the teacher as he waved his hand and caused runes to appear on the door frame. "This class is why you should be careful when entering a sorcerer's lair, they often have wards to keep people out. I'm sorry you two were repelled, I'll modify the wards to prevent this from happening again," said the teacher. With a few gestures and mumbled words, one of the runes changed and the teacher nodded in satisfaction. "Well, Kamiya-san, Uzumaki-san, glad to have you with us. I'm Gosunkugi Hikaru and this," he gestured to a woman who had just appeared at the doorway with a pair of text books, "is my girlfriend and assistant Natasha. Please take one of these books and a seat." Naruto and Kimiko did as instructed; Naruto quickly finding Jason and Zenith were in this class and sat by them, while Kimiko sat next to Violet and Miyuki. "Now, let me explain this class. It is meant to help students survive encounters with hostile magic. I will be teaching you about magical creatures, spells, and how magic works so you can learn how to either defend yourself against it or how to counter it," said Gosunkugi before he picked up a piece of chalk. "Today's topic is Ley lines and how they effect us. Ley lines are the channels that carry the planet's energy beneath its surface. Tokyo happens to sit on a place where many Ley lines cross, which is why youkai were so common here in the past and still live her today. The British Isles, the Bermuda Triangle, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, all of these are at places where several Ley lines cross. This is why invaders from outer space, other dimensions, and evil lords attack Tokyo so often; they can access the planet's energy easily here. Yes Uzumaki-san?"

Naruto blinked, the sensei hadn't even turned around to see he had raised his hand. "Umm, what if a new island was created somehow, like a bunch of undersea volcanoes suddenly erupted? How would that influence Ley lines?" he asked.

"Good question. Japan has had ages to become used to the Ley lines, a newly created island such as you suggested would have a huge effect on any settlers. I imagine humans settling there would grow much stronger than normal and gain unique abilities," said Gosunkugi. "Now, everyone turn to page 50 in your books and you'll find a listing of major Ley line crossings. We call these nexuses…"

(0o0o0)

Hinata walked to her computer class somewhat hesitantly. She only knew the basics of using a computer since all the hospital records were kept on them and that was about it. Naruto knew nothing about them, hence why he wasn't in this class with her. She turned as she heard her name being called and smiled as Kasumi jogged towards her with a cyan haired girl following her. "Hinata, meet Ryeka, the best computer expert in the school," said Kasumi as she gestured to her friend, who smiled slightly at Hinata.

"I hope you enjoy the class, feel free to ask for any help in catching up since they put all levels of students in here," said Ryeka.

"Arigato, I'm used to browsing and editing patient records in a medical database, but not much beyond that," said Hinata.

"Well, sensei will give you a work book we all start with that will walk you through the common applications," said Kasumi. The three girls entered a room full of the latest personal computers arranged in rows so their users faced the front of the room where a black haired woman was sitting behind the desk reading a computer product magazine and circling things that caught her interest with a highlighter. She looked up when the door opened and smiled upon seeing Hinata's companions.

"Kasumi, Ryeka, good news, the school approved our purchase of the ENCOM laser so we can do the game as a class project!" she said before focusing on Hinata. "You must be Hyuuga Hinata; I'm Oditer Skuld, teacher of computers and mechanics here at Furinkan. Since you know Kasumi and Ryeka, they can take the rest of the week to help you get caught up with the class." Hinata nodded and followed both girls to a set of three computers where they started showing her the basis of Microsoft Word. It didn't take Hinata long with two expert guides and she soon finished the entire Word section of the workbook. Kasumi explained the class was mainly a self-paced course, with students working on individual projects and a big class project that would be started soon. Hinata enjoyed working with Kasumi and Ryeka, both of them took turns explaining the exercises in the book to her and walking her through them.

(0o0o0)

Naruto and Hinata were able to see each other briefly on the way to their next classes. Naruto was surprised to find Keiichi was the teacher for Driver's Ed and openly stared at the man in shock until Keiichi noticed and asked if he had something on his face. Naruto took a seat next to Kazuhiro Shinji, the boy who had been reading the manga in homeroom earlier, and Faruki Dakaso, one of the quieter students from homeroom. Naruto was handed a small pamphlet and instructed to read through it with the rest of the class for a while Keiichi tried to get the room's projector to receive the signal from the DVD player provided. After a few minutes of muttering about teaching people how to recognize the proper places to plug cables, Keiichi was able to start the instructional video that highlighted all the features of a car and how to use them. After the video, Keiichi started to explain the less. "Alright everyone, this class is designed to teach you the basics of using a car, as well as other vehicles you might use like a motor scooter for deliveries. Now that you know the purpose of the parts of a car in relevance to the driver, let's go over some of the basics, staring with car safety..." said Keiichi as he used a laser pointer to show the areas he was talking about.

(0o0o0)

Hinata smiled as she walked into First aid and found a purple haired woman in a dark grey dress wearing a doctor's coat sitting at the desk reading a book. Not surprising to Hinata, many of the students in the class were female, though she did recognize Jason from her homeroom as one of the boys in the class. She quickly recognized Keimei and sat down next to her as well as a busty girl with dirty blonde hair named Kaii Tomo and another slightly prettier blonde with an hourglass figure named Inashi Miname who instantly reminded Hinata of a typical arrogant princess she had to entertain a few times when important people came to visit her family. Fortunately for Hinata, Tomo and Keimei were on either side of her and Miname seemed to want nothing to do with them. When the bell rang, the teacher marked her place and stood up with a smile before sitting down on top of her desk and facing her students. "Hello everyone, my name is Tomoe Hotaru, it's a pleasure to meet you all. I'm so glad that so many of you continued into this class after the basic first aid course required or tested into it like Hinata-chan. We'll be learning about hospital procedures, medical terms, and other things you should know to begin apprenticing to a local clinic before moving up to a real hospital. I'll also be covering acupuncture, moxibustion, and pressure points. In the event of an accident in a different class, you are allowed to stabilize the patient until I arrive and keep them calm. We'll start off with this brief quiz on hospital procedure," said the teacher as she passed out a two page multiple-choice quiz. Hinata smiled as she got to work, as this was relatively simple for her.

(0o0o0)

The last class of the day for Naruto and Hinata turned out to be together. It was entitled Ninja 101 and the two were eager to see what they might learn. The class took place in a room set up like a traditional dojo with several diagrams of vulnerable points of the human body on the wall and a few practice dummies. There was no teacher present and the students conversed among themselves. Hinata and Naruto recognized several students from their homeroom that introduced themselves as Hyaku Ichi and Shinomori Sakura. The students' conversations were brought to a halt when a cloud of smoke appeared in the front of the dojo and revealed a man when it disappeared. He was dressed in classic ninja clothes and had a katana strapped to his back. "Welcome to Ninja 101. I am Ryuu Kenshin and I will be teaching you the way of the modern ninja," he said. "Please take a seat while I explain the course."

After everyone had been seated, Kenshin remained standing and said, "I will be teaching you about security systems and getting around them, throwing shuriken, disguises, and means of travel most people wouldn't expect. I will not be teaching you how to throw fire balls, walk on water or walls, slice up monsters with a sword, or how to use stealth to peek on the girls' changing room." At this last bit, everyone sweat dropped, aside from Naruto, who snickered. "Is there something funny Uzumaki-san?" asked Kenshin.

"Just that my old sensei would love to learn that last one," said Naruto. Kenshin suddenly disappeared and freaked out all the students as he appeared behind Naruto. However, Naruto had already rolled forward onto his hands and his foot shot up towards

Kenshin's chin, only for the teacher to grab it and stop the attack.

"As you can see class, Uzumaki-san is very aware of his surroundings. As soon as I started to move he was already rolling forwards to avoid me. And Hyuuga-san apparently knows how he works very well since she has a finger on a very humiliating pressure point," said Kenshin, sounding very pleased. Indeed, Hinata had slipped behind Kenshin and just needed to jab her finger forward to disable his legs and cause him to fall face first to the ground. Kenshin released Naruto and resumed his place at the front of the class while Naruto and Hinata sat back down. Kenshin started out by lecturing on the history of ninja in Japan and how their system worked. Naruto and Hinata took careful notes, realizing that everything they could learn in this one class was worth the rest of the training time lost attending school since they were getting a better grasp of shinobi. Naruto thought Kenshin would make a good friend for Iruka and the two would have made a great team for teaching at the academy. Kenshin finished the lesson with a brief overview on the structure system of the ancient ninja that was similar to what Naruto and Hinata knew aside from lacking a Kage. As the two exited the class and proceeded to their shoe lockers, Naruto was prepared to spend the rest of the day training with Hinata, Akira, Miyuki, and Ranko at the Saotome dojo, only to find a letter addressed to him in his locker. After reading it. Naruto glanced at the worried Hinata.

"Sorry Hinata, a local kitsune has asked to meet me in private, tell Sensei I'll be late getting there," said Naruto with a smile. Hinata nodded and watched Naruto secure his book bag before running out of the school. However, something didn't seem right to Hinata, and she didn't realize she left one of her textbooks on the ground beside her locker before she headed to the Saotome dojo.

(0o0o0)

As soon as Naruto was on a rooftop for some privacy, he scowled and read the note again. It said, BASTARD FOX, I AWAIT YOU AT THE ABANDONED HONDA OFFICE BUILDING'S TOP FLOOR. YOUR MORTAL FOE. "Somebody moves fast, I've only been in town a day and already I'm getting challenges," muttered Naruto as he read the included map to show him where to go. But he wasn't going by their route as he was, instead he made a few hand signs and muttered, "Kitsune Hijutsu: Kitsunenomen (Fox secret art: Mask of the Fox)!" Naruto suddenly faded away from the eyes of casual observers, though if Hinata had been there and activated her Byakugan she would have seen him. Making his way along the rooftops took longer, but Naruto was able to avoid encountering anyone and made it to the abandoned building. Easily walking up the side of the building with his chakra, Naruto slipped into the highest floor he could through an unlocked window. He found himself in a junior executive's office and stealthily made his way up the stairs to the executive office. Entering the room, he was surprised to find Kimiko looking around warily. "I take it you sent me this?" asked Naruto as he tossed the challenge letter to the middle of the room and gripped Nenshousaiga tightly. However, Kimiko looked surprised and confused as she tossed down another challenge letter.

"Didn't you call me out here?" she demanded as a pair of dog ears and a fluffy tail appeared on her. Seeing that she was definitely a hanyou, Naruto revealed his own tails and ears. Kimiko was definitely surprised by their appearance and relaxed her guard slightly. "My letter said that an old enemy of my parents was here with my little brother hostage and if I didn't come alone he would die…" she said.

"I think we're both guests and our host has yet to arrive," said Naruto.

There was a sudden click before "Well well, took you long enough to figure it out," came out of a loudspeaker on the wall. "You two are currently the guests of the Yaeba (Double tooth) gang. We don't appreciate kitsune moving in on our turf and we won't let the dogs run around without a collar," said the voice.

Kimiko spotted a speaker phone and pressed the intercom button. "What do you want from us?" she demanded.

"Simple, you're going to agree to give us protection money and we don't rough up your family. As for the fox, we cut off his tails!" replied the voice.

"Keh, my dad would kick your ass six ways before you could blink," retorted Kimiko.

"And my mom could level this whole city without blinking," added Naruto.

"But they aren't here now and if you don't listen to us we'll be paying them a visit after we're done with you," said the voice.

Kimiko gestured for Naruto to take the phone and he did so, allowing her to pull a cell phone from her book bag and try to make a call.

"Don't bother with the cell phone bitch, we've got this place warded against outside communication," said the voice as Kimiko scowled at the 'out of range' message she was getting.

"You guys are real idiots, when my parents catch you they'll tear you apart," said Kimiko.

"Oh, I don't think so," said the voice. "We have a bit of insurance for your co-operation."

"Yeah right, what kind of insurance?" demanded the dog girl. The next words she heard chilled her to the bone.

"Nee-chan, they've got Haruka-chan and Okaa-san to!" wailed Kiyoshi over the intercom.

'That's impossible, Oka-san could take a hundred youkai down… but tonight is the full moon, her human night! She must have been losing her powers and never sensed the kidnappers until it was too late,' thought Kimiko. "Kiyoshi, are you and Haruka okay?" she demanded.

"Oh, we haven't hurt them and your mother is only bound by demon wards in the building basement and unharmed. That is unless you agree to co-operate with us, if you don't we'll start using her for stress relief," said the original voice as Kiyoshi's voice was muffled, though a curse about the little runt biting told Kimiko her brother was fighting as hard as possible to get free. "And you father thinks your mother took all of you to another shrine with her, so he won't miss you until tomorrow."

Naruto suddenly reached over and smashed the intercom, preventing them from contacting the gang member on the other end any more. "Why did you do that?" shrieked Kimiko.

"It's a hostage situation now, we have to get your mother and siblings. In a situation like this, it's best to remove the enemy's control. What's your preferred weapon?" asked Naruto as he pulled a scroll from his back pack.

"Bow and arrow, why?" asked a thoroughly confused Kimiko.

"I always keep the weapons of the bandits my team hunts down," said Naruto as he smeared some of his blood on a kanji symbol and a sturdy bow appeared in a puff of smoke. Naruto then unsealed a large quiver of arrows that he handed to Kimiko before reverting Nenshousaiga back to its normal form as a katana. "We get out of here and rescue your family while taking out as many enemies as possible."

"Who the heck are you? You're acting like some military otaku, but you're only 13 years old!" yelled Kimiko.

Naruto just grinned at her and said, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, Chunin shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato (Village Hidden by the Leaves of the Trees) in Hi no Kuni (Country of Fire) and future Rokudaime Hokage!"

Kimiko could only stare at Naruto in surprise before she felt something that all of Naruto's comrades were very familiar with. A rising courage, a strengthening of her spirit… at that moment, Kimiko knew the burning of Naruto's Will of Fire and she would have gladly faced down all the evil youkai her parents had fought before she was born to repair the Shikon no Tama. "I have a way to alert my father to what's going on, he can definitely help us, but it will take him time to get here from wherever he is," she said.

"And I'll get us some back up," said Naruto before muttering, "Kuchiyose no jutsu!" and slamming his hand into the ground.

(0o0o0)

Hinata slumped slightly as she tried to catch her breath. She had been sparing with Miyuki for the last half hour to let Ranma and Akane evaluate her skill level and she was beginning to tire. Ranma signaled for the girls to separate and cool down, allowing both girls to go into their cool down routine. "Very good Hinata," said Ranma. "I can see you're mainly a soft style user who replies on deflecting attacks combined with palm strikes. Since your attacks focus on attacking internal organs with your chakra as you call it and disabling an opponent's body, it's a very good style. We'll start you off with Tai Chi and progress to Aikido…" Ranma was interrupted as a three tailed fox appeared in the middle of the dojo in a burst of smoke.

"Hinata-san, Naruto-sama sent this for you," said the kitsune as it set a piece of paper down in front of Hinata. "This will tell you the restaurant's location, please don't be late." Hinata instantly knew something was wrong; they were planning to eat at home tonight, not go out. The message must mean Naruto was in trouble. The fox disappeared as Hinata read the note.

"I'm sorry Ranma-sensei, but I'm going to have to go," said Hinata as she grabbed the paper and bowed to Ranma before running to her temporary home, where she donned her ninja gear and made sure to grab her medical supply pouch. Silently cursing that Jiraiya wasn't home and was most likely at the nearest red light district and a note said Hoshiko was out shopping, Hinata used one of the jutsu her father had taught her for quickly duplicating letters for when she was clan head and made a copy of the note for him and pinned it where Jiraiya would see it as soon as he opened the door, not realizing that she forgot to lock the door. Running out of the house, she turned the corner and just missed three figures that turned onto the street and approached the house.

(0o0o0)

Several figures clad in black leather waited outside the office occupied by Naruto and Kimiko. Each was armed with a different weapon and ready for action. Still, they were taken by surprise when the door exploded as a horde of Naruto clones burst out of the office and engaged them. Several arrows shot out of the smoke caused by the door's destruction and struck gang members in the legs or arms, disabling them from the fight. Naruto and Kimiko burst out of the smoke and charged the rearmost gang members through the openings the horde of clones made for them. The two hanyou easily disabled their surprised foes with quick slashes of their claws to the enemies' Achilles Tendons before charging towards the elevator. Naruto pushed the call button and the doors opened, revealing an empty car.

(0o0o0)

On the next floor down, the gang members heard the elevator coming and hit the call button, causing it to open, revealing an empty car with a piece of paper on the far wall. Curious, they peered inside only to be engulfed in a pepper scented tear gas cloud of smoke from the crowd control tag that stuffed up their noses and blinded them, allowing Naruto and Kimiko to dart down the stairs to the next floor while taking out the few enemies not affected by the smoke. By now the enemies on the next floor, which happened to be floor number eight, office supplies, had figured something was up and were on guard. It took Naruto and Kimiko several minutes to dispose of these foes and make their way to the next stairway.

(0o0o0)

"It seems we underestimated these two," said the person who had been talking to Naruto and Kimiko over the intercom. The fox boy in particular knows what he's doing," he said as a security camera showed Naruto burning the boken used against him before slamming the hilt of his sword into his opponent's forehead, knocking the gang member out.

"True," said another gang member, a bloody bandage around his hand showing that he was the one Kiyoshi had bitten, "but those are only humans, flour six on down is filled with our toughest youkai and we're guarding the hostages. They can't hope to beat us all."

"Still, these kids are more powerful than we gave them credit for," said the only female figure in the group.

"But they're still young, they won't be able to handle all of our forces," said the first speaker.

(0o0o0)

"I'm home!" yelled Inuyasha as he entered his house, only to find his adopted son looking worried. "What's wrong Shippo, something up with Sesshomaru?" asked Inuyasha as he grabbed a soda and started to chug it.

"Kimiko is in trouble!" exclaimed Shippo, causing Inuyasha to spray soda across the kitchen. "I just got back through the well for dinner, only to find Flamie knocked out and Grandma out cold in her bed. I can smell tons of different youkai, Haruka and Kiyoshi are gone as well as Oka-san, and this note is supposed to be from Oka-san but doesn't have her scent on it!"

"Damn, wake up Flamie, someone is going to learn the hard way you don't mess with the Kamiya family!" growled Inuyasha as he gripped the handle of his sword Tessaiga.

(0o0o0)

"How are you holding up Kimiko?" asked Naruto as they took a few seconds to catch their breath on the seventh floor.

"I'm fine, these guys are just normal humans, they go out with a light tap," said Kimiko as she gestured at the mass of bound gang members they had just defeated. "What worries me is that I sense a large number of youkai auras below us… and the only human one is my mother since it's her human night…."

"So, things are going to be a little more difficult from here on out?" said Naruto. "Excellent, I could use a work out!"

"Since we're facing youkai, I'll be using my miko powers, try to avoid appearing behind me suddenly or I might purify you by accident," said Kimiko as her hands briefly glowed pink.

"No problem, my team mate has some miko training and I can sense her powers when we're fighting, so I won't be in your way," said Naruto with a grin. "Now, let's go show those guys they picked the wrong kids to mess with!" Kimiko nodded and the two charged down the stairs, where a group of big muscled boar youkai waited for them. The pigs were tough but dumb, easily distracted by Naruto and Kimiko yelling, "Look out behind you!" and turning around to leave themselves vulnerable to blows from behind. The next floor however, was guarded by wolf youkai who each put up a good fight and worked together well. The fourth floor was patrolled by lizard youkai who could blend into the background for stealth attacks, though the two hanyou were able to use their noses to detect them.

(0o0o0)

A phone rang in the basement and the gang leader who had been talking to Naruto and Kimiko over the intercom pulled a cell phone out of his pocked and flipped it open. "What?" he demanded.

"Boss, that blue haired girl that moved in with the kid is running towards the building!" said one of his underlings.

"Hmmm, bring her here, I'll have some fun with her after beating her boyfriend down and make him watch as I ravish her," said the leader.

"Hai boss!" said the minion.

(0o0o0)

Hinata scowled as she saw a bunch of thugs stream out of the building to intercept her. "I feel like I'm beating up Academy students," she muttered before activating her Byakugan. What the thugs thought would be an easy victory over a little girl turned into a humiliating defeat as Hinata used her agility to weave around their attacks, striking Tenketsu to disable limbs and disarm her opponents. Hinata left a pile of groaning bodies behind her as she continued running towards the building. Not stopping, she ran right up the side of the building to where she could sense Naruto's chakra.

(0o0o0)

"Ok, these guys are tougher than the others," growled Naruto as he struggled to break a deadlock with a neko gangster who wielded a pair of sai and had ensnared Nenshousaiga's blade with the prongs of the weapons.

"Yeah, but they still leave plenty of openings," said Kimiko as she brought her knee up for a groin strike on another cat youkai who had thought her helpless from one of his tonfa smashing into her head.

Any further conversation was interrupted as the window exploded in a shower of glass as Hinata used an explosive tag to blast her way into the third floor. The Hyuuga heiress took advantage of the neko gang members' disbelief to quickly disable a pair of kodachi using twin cat women. As they crashed to the ground from the force of her palm strikes, Hinata had already assumed the Jūken stance and without turning to face Naruto said, "Naruto-kun… the next time you decide to sneak off and try to solve a problem without me I am going to use you as a practice dummy!"

"Yes Hinata-chan, it won't happen again!" squeaked Naruto.

"You are so whipped Fox boy!" barked Kimiko with a grin.

"You saw her take out those two in a split second, do you think I want her pissed off at me?" demanded Naruto as he strapped on the weapons pouch Hinata tossed him as well as his shuriken and kunai holsters.

Hinata interrupted the two hanyou as she asked, "Can we save the chatter until the hostages are rescued?"

"Sorry," said both hanyou before all three charged a very nervous cat youkai armed with a set of nunchucks. Seeing all thee skilled foes charge towards him, the cat fainted and fell onto his back while foaming at the mouth.

"Pathetic," muttered Naruto before the group descended down the stairs to the second floor. There they found a group of tiger youkai waiting for them. Tiger youkai are, unfortunately for our heroes, some of the physically stronger youkai and very adapt at hand-to-hand combat with their lethal claws and powerful muscles. The squad facing Naruto, Hinata, and Kimiko were all prime specimens of the species and very tough looking. "This might take a while," said Naruto before the two groups crashed together.

But the tigers outnumbered the two ninja and the dog girl two to one. Already tired from fighting through the previous floors, Kimiko's guard slipped and a punch from one of her opponents sent her crashing out a window. Now normally falling from a two-story height wouldn't bother Kimiko, but the punch had knocked the wind out of her.

'I'm dead,' the analytical part of Kimiko's mind thought as she saw the shower of glass shards from the broken window falling around her. 'I hope Naruto and Hinata are able to rescue Oka-san, Haruka, and Kiyoshi…' A sudden sensation of falling brought her out of her musing before she realized she was rising into the air. Feeling a grip on her hand, she looked up to see Ryeka hovering above her and pulling her back to the second floor. "Ryeka? How?" gasped Kimiko as she finally caught her breath.

"Talk later, kick butt now," said the cyan haired girl as she tossed Kimiko back into the fray, but behind Hinata's opponents. Ryeka followed, pulling what looked like a purple oval split by a handle out of nowhere. Kimiko was surprised to hear the familiar discharge of a Covenant Plasma Rifle from the Halo games and see a bolt of plasma strike one of the tiger youkai in the back, knocking him down with a pretty serious burn. Kimiko quickly slid under the feet of the downed youkai's partner and then spun in mid air to deliver a quick kick to his head, allowing Hinata to strike his suddenly unguarded chest. With Ryeka providing cover fire, the three front line fighters were able to easily finish up the remaining tiger youkai.

"Ryeka, where the hell did you get that?" demanded Kimiko as she pointed to the plasma rifle the cyan haired girl clutched.

"I made it, I always liked the Halo games and decided to make a working replica of all the covenant weapons," said Ryeka as Hinata healed the nasty wound Naruto had gotten from one of the tiger youkai.

"How the hell could you make a piece of alien technology from a video game?" shrieked Kimiko.

"Easy, I'm not completely human," said Ryeka as she pushed a button on the watch on her wrist and revealed a pair of elfin ears. "Long story short, my dad is a human, my mom is an alien, I'm super smart, I built this myself. Now, why do two of you have animal ears and tails?"

"I'm a kitsune hanyou and she's a inu hanyou," said Naruto.

"Fair enough," said Ryeka.

"Ryeka, what are you doing here?" asked Hinata.

"You left your computer class text book by your locker, I had to get your address from the secretary and find my way to your house, you had just left when I got there with Miyuki and Akira showing me the way," explained Ryeka.

"Wait, does that mean they're here to?" demanded Hinata.

"Nah, I flew ahead, but they should be getting here right about… now," said Ryeka as the Saotome kids leapt through the broken window with grins on their faces.

"Really Hinata-chan, I thought you understood that if someone messes with one member of the Anything Goes School they mess with all of them," said Akira as he cracked his knuckles.

"But you two are just normal students!" protested Hinata.

"True, but we're three years older than Naruto and you and have been trained most of our lives by our father and mother," said Miyuki gently as she ruffled Hinata's hair. "You aren't much different than us aside from your Byakugan and nine years of intense ninja training. We can take care of ourselves. You've already cleared most of this building, so since we're fresh we'll be a big help finishing off the last few floors."

"I guess there isn't much we can say to convince you otherwise?" said Naruto with a smirk. Seeing the grins the siblings returned he continued, "Okay, here's the plan…"

(0o0o0)

The first floor was guarded by a group of five wolf youkai. They were surprised to find the first attack was a spray of plasma blasts from Ryeka followed by kunai from a group of Naruto clones. This allowed Naruto, Hinata, Miyuki, Akira, and Kimiko to get into close range combat. Naruto, Kimiko, and Miyuki used their claws to their advantage and kept their targets busy while Akira and Hinata herded their opponents together in a group. As soon as all the wolf youki were in one place, Akira and Miyuki gathered their energy into their arms and yelled, "La Bomba!" before punching the ground, tossing all five youkai into the air from the resulting shockwave. In the air, the wolves' high speed was useless as Naruto clones bombarded them with kicks and punches, leaving the whole group to collapse unconscious.

"What the heck was that?" asked Naruto in surprise. Akira and Miyuki had said they had a special technique to take out a group of enemies close together, but he hadn't expected it to be so unique.

"It's a technique from our grandmother's side of the family, far back her clan was called the Kamite (God Hand) and they specialized in hand to hand combat to excorcise demons. The first born son of each generation would inherit this power, called God Hand, since Miyuki and I are twins she got the power as well, making her the first girl to wield the power of God Hand in many generations," said Akira. "That technique is from the Kamite clan's special technique library passed down through the ages."

"Otou-san was kind of pissed Oyaji hadn't bothered to find out about why Grandma wanted him trained by her clan since he missed out on so many cool techniques for so long," said Miyuki with a smile.

"Okay, you guys figure out our next move, I'm going to see if I can hack that obviously recently installed computer over there to get a feed from the security cameras I've noticed on the floors," said Ryeka.

(0o0o0)

"Hmm, they're stronger than I thought and have unexpected allies," said the gangster leader.

"Come on Gin, as if they could harm us," said the thug who Kiyoshi had bitten earlier.

"Oh, I wouldn't be to smug Kiyo," said Gin. "The blond's clone technique produces solid bodies and his sword is powerful. The dog girl is strong to, she makes every arrow count and she's used to using her claws. Most of our past victims have been living peacefully in these times and their fighting spirit is low and they were untrained. Their children, despite their ages, have exceptional training. Observe how the cyan haired girl is hacking the computer at the front security desk. We'll have to make sure such a security risk isn't present in our next hideout. To bad we only have the camera feed going here and can't figure out what she's viewing…"

(0o0o0)

"I can't believe they reactivated the security system but didn't use it to lock you guys down or keep me from hacking the system," said Ryeka as her fingers flew across the keyboard of the laptop the gang had set up at the desk to monitor the security system.

"Well, they kind of want us to come to them," said Naruto. "That's the whole point of not sending their strongest members against us from the start when it was just Kimiko and me. They want to crush us with their power so we bow to their demands."

"Ryeka-chan, can you use the security system to figure out how many people are guarding my mother and siblings?" asked Kimiko.

"Give me a second," said Ryeka as she rapidly moved through the system. "Got it, looks like five… no six people down there. One woman, five men. Your mom is bound in ofuda and so are your siblings."

"Okay, let's see the room layout," said Naruto as the group crowded around the laptop.

(0o0o0)

"What are they up to Gin?" asked the only woman in the room as she clutched the whip in her hands tightly.

"Not sure Kira, but they're probably coming here soon," said Gin as he fingered the sword resting by his seat.

"I just want to crush them," growled Kiyo as he hefted the giant iron ball and chain he used as a weapon.

"Calm down you big lummox, we'll all get some fun out of them," said a figure lounging on a beat up couch with a pair of sai on his back.

"Li is right, stay calm or we'll lose our advantage," said another figure who carried a spear by his side.

"Yori speaks the truth, keep calm or all our plans will go up in smoke," said the last gang member, who was flexing his arm under a cloak repeatedly.

"Quiet, looks like they've decided on a battle plan," said Gin as he stood up with his sword in his grasp. "Ku, you stay back and give us cover fire," The cloaked member nodded and a slight whine was heard as he flexed his covered arm again. All six youkai tensed as they heard the door to the lower level of the building shake as the lock was tried. Finally, the door started to open only to have a ball tossed inside and roll down to rest at the feet of the room's occupants, who only had a minute to feel puzzled before the kanji for light on the ball glowed and they were blinded by an intense burst of light.

Ryeka quickly phased through the wall and grabbed Kagome, Kiyoshi, and Haruka before phasing out and teleporting them to a nearby rooftop where she quickly removed their bindings. As Kiyoshi stared at her in shock, she pulled out a futuristic looking gun with a purple base. "That's a Covenant Carbine!" gasped Kiyoshi, who was a devoted Halo fan.

"Yeah, and my friends are luring your kidnappers up to the first floor so I can use this on them," said Ryeka as she got ready to snipe the enemy.

(0o0o0)

"I'm gonna kill 'em!" roared Kiyo as he charged towards the door for a shoulder tackle, only to find nothing behind the door aside from a foot that caused him to trip and go sailing face first across the room. As he stumbled to his feet, Akira grabbed his head and started to rapidly introduce Kiyo's face to his knee before grabbing the large youkai's neck and slamming him head first into the ground.

Kira had followed Kiyo's charge and her whip lashed out to grab Akira's neck, only to be halted by Miyuki's hand grabbing the whip. The two quickly got into a tug-o-war for the weapon. Li leapt towards Miyuki, only to be intercepted by Kimiko and sent crashing into the wall away from the others.

As Kimiko charged towards Li, Yori attempted to skewer the dog girl with his spear, but Hinata slid under the attack and swept his feet out from under him. As Yori leapt back to try to get range for his spear, Hinata stuck with him, her smaller size and agility allowing her to stay inside his range. Yori snarled as he turned the middle of his spear, transforming it into a three segment chained staff with a spearhead on one end.

Gin had let his comrades go first to draw any attacks, but as he drew his sword Naruto's tails shot through the door, grabbing him and tossing him into the middle of the large room. Gin barely managed to draw his sword in time to keep Nenshousaiga from splitting him in half.

Because Naruto's back was to the door, he didn't see Ku step out of the shadows and raise his cloak, revealing his arm was a prosthetic with a vulcan gun attachment. A red dot appeared on Naruto's back as the gun's barrels started to spin, only to have a burst of green light strike the gun barrels, throwing off Ku's aim. Whipping his head around, Ku spotted Ryeka leaping away from her perch and the youkai gunner dashed out to follow her, wings growing out of his back as he assumed his true form, that of a giant bat and gave chase to the flying girl.

Gin frowned as Ku abandoned them, but considering he had seen someone shoot at Ku he figured it was okay. Gin smirked at Naruto as he drove his foot into Naruto's chest, knocking the wind out of the blond and giving him time to shift from his human appearance to a heavily muscled oni. Naruto let out a curse as Gin's strength started to overwhelm his own.

Miyuki hissed as Kira revealed herself to be a panthress youkai and was very glad she was in her catgirl form since she doubted she would have enough speed to avoid the cat woman's whip and claws in her human form. The two were now stalking one another, waiting for an opening. A stray bit of the floor sent into the air by one of the other fights sailing in between then sent the two lunging towards one another. As the two leapt past each other, they both swiped with their claws. As they landed, three cuts appeared in Miyuki's shirt and exposed three gashes on her side that caused her to gasp. Kira hissed in displeasure since Miyuki left four marks on her and they were deeper due to the Ki the Saotome heiress had covering her claws. As the two spun to face one another again, Miyuki muttered, "Musabetsu Kakutō Nekoken Ryū: Ayatori (Anything goes Cat first school: Cat's cradle!)" as Kira leapt towards her. Miyuki let the panthress reach the peak of her leap before making her move, leaping below Kira and latching onto the panthress with her claws. Miyuki then flipped them so Kira would land face first on the ground. Miyuki grinned as she heard the wind get driven from Kira's body and released the panthress to leap back. "Nya, looks like you can't catch this kitty," taunted the red head.

Away from the literal cat fight, Akira was staring in shock as Kiyo pried his head out of the small crater formed by Akira slamming his head into the ground. As the thug's hair thickened and spread down his head, Akira realized he was facing a gorilla youkai. "Buddy, you just signed up for a humiliating defeat," said Akira with the classic Saotome smirk. While not as big as the Uzumaki smirk, the Saotome smirk was meant to infuriate the opponent and lure them into a foolish attack. Kiyo however decided that it would be more interesting to introduce Akira's face to his iron ball and chain. As the giant mass of metal hurtled towards the Saotome heir, his eyes narrowed before he spun aside from the attack and jabbed out with a single finger. "Bakusai Tenketsu (Breaking Point)!" yelled Akira as the iron ball exploded in a shower of metal pieces that he shrugged off easily while Kiyo stared in shock. "Got to thank Uncle Ryoga for convincing dad to teach me that technique," he said before charging Kiyo. The gorilla youkai went to punch the boy, only to have Akira weave around his arm and kick him in the face, knocking him to the ground. The Saotome boy instantly slipped into a family combo for downed opponents and raised his leg before bringing his heel down and the impact forced Kiyo up into the air, where Akira's knee met his chest. Next was a rising dragon punch to juggle the gorilla in the air, followed by a mid air round house kick as he came down again, sending him crashing into the wall. "Feh, loser," muttered Akira as he prepared to help Miyuki, only to have Kiyo's arm grab him.

"We're not done yet punk," snarled the gorilla as his grip tightened on Akira's arm. Kiyo tossed Akira right into his sister, sending the two of them sprawling. "You alright Kira?" asked Kiyo as he squatted over the panthress, who was regaining her breath.

"That little kitten is mine, I'm going to skin her alive!" hissed Kira as she picked up her whip and lashed out with it, striking Miyuki's leg and causing her to let out a cry of pain.

Up until Miyuki had cried out, Kimiko had managed to keep up with Li and his sai, making use of every trick her father had taught her to make up for her lack of a close quarter weapon. 'I really should have asked Naruto for a dagger,' thought Kimiko as she was forced to use her temporary bow as a staff. Normally she would have used a bow filled with her spiritual power and laid the smack down on any youkai in this same situation, but as it was things weren't going so well. Li had the reach on her and more stamina, especially when he reverted to wolf youkai form. The only advantage Kimiko had now was that she had often sparred with her father's friend/rival Koga, the wolf prince, and was used to fighting a wolf youkai taller than herself. However, Li managed to slip through her guard as she was distracted by Miyuki's cry of pain and pierced her side with his sai before tossing her back.

"Hehehehe, little bitches like you should know your place," growled Li.

"And bastards like you should know better," replied Kimiko as she pressed her hands to the wound before removing it with some of her blood on her claws. "Hijin Kessō (Blades of Blood)!" yelled Kimiko as she swiped her claws, sending curved blades of her own blood at Li, forcing him to cover his face when one was headed towards his eyes. This left him open just long enough for Kimiko to charge forward with a cry of, "Sankon Tessō (Soul-scattering Iron Claws)!" Li brought his sai up to block, only to stare in shock as the powerful attack tore right through them and Kimiko's claws hit his face, leaving him blind in his left eye. As Li howled in pain, Kimiko leapt back and placed an arrow to the string. "Fūin no Ya (Arrow of Sealing)!" said Kimiko as she released the arrow. Instantly, the arrow was surrounded by glowing white energy as it slammed into Li, pinning him to the wall. He had a moment to stare at Kimiko in shock before he slumped over, his power sealed by the arrow. However, she found herself forced to deal with Kira, whose sharp ears had caught the twang of the bowstring and caused her to target Kimiko instead of Miyuki and Akira. Kiyo was left to deal with the Saotome kids himself, which turned out to be a bad thing, since they were bouncing around him not striking him before bouncing clear of counter attacks.

Hinata snorted as she slapped aside one of Yori's attacks before sweeping the man off his feet. As he climbed to his feet his forked tongue flicking out of his mouth told Hinata he was a snake youkai and made her think of Orochimaru. With that thought behind her, Hinata spun around Yori's attacks and delivered a two palm slam attack to his chest, tossing him backwards and into the wall, where he slumped unconscious. Hinata then rushed to help Kimiko with Kira, the two girls able to work together reasonably well thanks to fighting through the last three floors together and adapting the combination moves Naruto and Hinata normally used to Kimiko's use. Kira found herself overwhelmed by the two and pinned to the wall by several kunai Kimiko had slapped Ofuda on to subdue her.

Meanwhile, Akira and Miyuki had become tired of using Kiyo for a pinball bumper and linked up in mid air. Back to back, they started spinning together while kicking off the walls and ceiling. Finally appearing under Kiyo, they bounced to the ceiling before dropping down with two powerful snap kicks to his head, leaving him dizzy, with a cry of, "Dual Jet-Stream Raging Waters Attack!" Akira then broke away from his sister and delivered another suplex to Kiyo, knocking him out for good this time.

Outside, Ku and Ryeka had been engaged in a flying gunfight. Ryeka's aim was exceptional and the only reason she couldn't end the fight quickly was because Ku's natural movements based on factors she couldn't sense combined with the recoil from his Vulcan gun caused him to jerk out of her sights just enough that she missed. Ryeka cursed as she lost sight of Ku when he darted behind another building. 'Damn, mom is going to give me grief for letting my enemy out of my sight,' thought Ryeka before she was forced to dodge a swarm of bullets. Tapping what looked like a hearing aid resting behind her ear, Ryeka caused a pale visor to appear over her eyes with triangular antenna at the ends. Various read outs played over the surface of the visor as it analyzed the data it was receiving. Ryeka grinned as she sent her Covenant Carbine back to her armory and phased out of existence to dodge another Vulcan salvo. Ku stared as his target completely vanished from his echolocation, only to suddenly reappear behind him with her hand raised and hit him on his gun arm with an energy blast that overloaded the cybernetic nerves and knocked him out. As the bat youkai fell to the ground, Ryeka caught his leg and preceded back to the building, where she found most of the fights rapped up aside from Naruto's fight with Gin.

Naruto and Gin had been clashing blades this entire time, neither one allowing the fights around them to distract them. "So tell me," said Naruto as he ducked under Gin's latest attack, "why are you guys targeting me?"

"Simple, your father killed mine!" snarled gin as he became a humanoid black furred fox with eight tails. "My father almost had the position of Kyuubi no Kitsune for himself and then your father killed him!"

"Your father helped attack our village and even if he had beaten my father my mom would have kicked his butt and taken all his tails away!" retorted Naruto as they locked blades. Quite frankly Naruto was surprised he was doing this good against a kitsune with at least eight hundred years of experience.

"After my father's death all who followed him and would have joined in the slaughter of your pathetic village became Nogitsune. We came here and settled, thriving in the technological lands these humans have created!" growled Gin.

"So there are more of you around, that just means I'll have to hunt you all down," retorted Naruto.

"Fool, we are Nogitsune, we thrive in the shadows!" said Gin.

"Yeah, well let me tell you something, so do shinobi!" growled Naruto before he used Shunshin to appear behind Gin and slash his legs, effectively taking him out of the fight by cutting his Achilles tendons. With the fights over, the teens started securing their opponents with ninja wire Hinata had brought before collapsing together in the center of the battle scared lobby.

"So, how much trouble do you think we'll be in?" Miyuki asked Akira as they sat back to back.

"Considering we didn't come and get our parents and rushed off into a fight… lots," muttered the boy as he wiped sweat from his head.

"Oh, you two are definitely in trouble, but not as much as these punks," said Ranma as he calmly walked through the doors of the lobby followed by Akane and several people his kids didn't recognize. However, by their reactions Kimiko and Ryeka did. Kimiko was staring at the ground until a small red dragon burst through the legs of the adults and tackled her for a face licking, causing her to struggle to pull Flamie off her and finding her parents standing together while Shippo held Haruka and Kiyoshi on his back. Ryeka was being fussed over by her mothers and Washu while Tenchi gripped the Tenchi-ken, ready to use the lightsaber like blade on anyone threatening his family and Ren-oh-ki happily perched on Ryeka's head. Finally, an extremely worried Hoshiko was fussing over Naruto and Hinata, telling him that the next time he wanted to play the hero he was to tell her exactly where he was going so she would know where to send a rescue party.

"Hehehehe, sorry for getting everyone involved in my mess," said Naruto as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Baka, they challenged me to!" barked Kimiko.

"And there was no way I was letting you guys go into something like this without back up," said Ryeka with a smile.

"As we said, you challenge one member of the Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū," said Miyuki.

"… you challenge them all," said Akira, while Ranko, who had appeared with her brother, nodded.

"If you ever run off for something like this without telling me the truth I'll take away your snuggling, hugging, and kissing privileges," threatened Hinata.

"I think we're going to all need to have a long talk about this," said Ranma as he looked over all the groups. "Our house is nearby, we should have plenty of privacy there." The adults all nodded and set out, hidden from the arriving cops by a stealth field created by Washu. The cops would find ten floors showing signs of intense fighting and a bunch of tied up gang members numbering over a hundred in all, leaving them the mystery of who had fought with the Yaeba gang.

Coincidently, as the group passed the residence of the Konoha shinobi, they found Jiraiya passed out drunk on the doorstep with several slap marks on his face and smelling of sake and cheap perfume. Hoshiko was furious that the man would go out and do such perverted things and dragged him upstairs to sober up while the rest of the group continued to the Saotome house. With Akane, Ayeka, Ryoko, and Kagome working together, a large meal was quickly prepared and served, while the males discussing the night's events.

The teens were gathered in the Dojo, the girls playing with Flamie and Ren-oh-ki while Akira and Naruto rested against the walls and watched with smiles. Everyone looked up as the doors to the dojo opened and the adults entered.

(0o0o0)

**And that's the end of this chapter. The main purpose of this chapter was to establish the daily routine for school, changes will be made occasionally as the school year develops. You've also been introduced to the main characters for this story aside from a few who come in later. All of the students I've been sent will have small roles, with a few that I've read about in their creator's stories or that gave me lots of back ground getting larger ones since I know those characters better.**

**Also, there is a poll in the forums, please go and vote in it. Don't use the forums to send me ideas, I have enough ideas to i****ncorporate**** and that will be a big stretch for me. The forums are for me to give you guys info and polls, not gossip about the story. I also don't want to give away spoilers to you or have to shoot down ideas everyone might like since I have the story planned out so far. **


	3. Trial 2: Training and Tricks

**Well, here's the second trial. Responses for this story have mostly been good, so I'm happy.**

_Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Ranma ½, Inuyasha, Tenchi Muyo, or any other series referenced or used in this fan fic. If I did, NaruHina would be a reality and I'd be living easy instead of frantically searching for a job._

What Naruto, Hinata, and their new friends hadn't known was that the Yaeba gang had been extorting most of the hanyou at their school as well as some of the more affluent kids. The entire group wasn't sure how the news got out, but a few days after the incident Naruto found a small thank you present that had Keimei's scent on it in his locker, as did the rest of the group. It was a small first aid kit and attached was a simple note that said, "Thank you for putting yourselves in danger for the rest of us." When Hinata drew her aside to ask about the gift, Keimei revealed that she was a dragon hanyou and her clan had enough connections that she was able to get the whole story. The Yaeba gang had been threatening to expose her clan for a long time and Keimei was grateful to the group for causing the gang to be locked up. Miyuri Mitsuzuki, the high class girl with the faint cat scent Naruto had detected when scoping out the class, was in a similar situation, only her family didn't have the influence to investigate the matter and Keimei apparently passed the information off to her, only it was simple extortion on the gang's part. The rumors also meant Hinata had to deal with a sudden Naruto fan club. It took her only a minute to focus her killing intent on the girls before they were gone and seeking other prospects for love.

The good thing that came out of the incident with the Yaeba gang was that the adults came to an agreement that the teens made a good team and should be encouraged to work together. Ryeka's mothers were eager to see her make some friends who could withstand the craziness that could envelop her, while Inuyasha and Kagome were adamant about Naruto and Kimiko training together to strengthen their hanyou abilities. The end result was a rather complicated training regimen. First of all, Naruto and Hinata would create several clones after school to go home and do their homework and chores. On Monday and Tuesday, they would go to the Saotome house for martial arts practice, joined by Kimiko and Ryeka. Wednesday and Thursday they went to the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States period) of Japan through the Bone Eater's Well to train in the unspoiled forests and mountains. Friday and Saturday were spent at the home of Tenchi's grandfather Yosho to train in Kenjutsu. Sunday was the group's only day off, devoted to relaxing and recovering for another week of school and training. But even then, everyone was learning different things. Inuyasha would cover dealing with youkai while Kagome taught about healing herbs and trained Hinata in her miko powers. Yosho was trying to teach Naruto how to use his chakra to create an energy shield to block blows while fighting with Ryoko and Tenchi, while Ayeka sparred with Hinata and discussed politics in the elemental countries, helping Hinata prepare for leading the Hyuuga clan. Ranma and Akane simply trained everyone into the ground, even Naruto and Kimiko would be panting by the end of the day after one of Ranma's lessons.

Several times Ranma's lessons required the services of the local doctor and chiropractor Dr. Tofu, whose wife was Akane's oldest sister Kasumi. Everyone was surprised to find Hinata's medical sensei Hotaru was the assistant nurse at the clinic, even more so when they found out that Kenshin was her boyfriend. Naruto had been surprised to exit the clinic and find the ninja teacher outside the clinic door wearing a suit. He was even more surprised when the normally calm, collected, and polite Hotaru pushed him out of the way to leap into Kenshin's arms and kiss him. He had left the two teachers to continue their tongue war and returned home, where Hinata as just as surprised to learn the news about the teachers dating.

(0o0o0)

Currently, Naruto was sitting with his friends and enjoying lunch. Naruto and Kimiko were currently in a race to see who could eat more bowls of ramen, provided by Li Na, who ran a ramen stand at lunch to make money, while the rest of the group ate at a more normal pace. "So, when are we going to meet these friends of your parents Kimiko?" asked Ryeka as she fed Ren-oh-ki a carrot. The little cabbit had snuck into her backpack and refused to return home, so Ryeka was forced to get a bowl of carrots from her subspace pocket and feed her pet to keep the cabbit from raiding the school cafeteria.

"Well, Auntie Sango, Uncle Miroku, Kohaku-san, and Hiryuu-kun should be back soon, they've been chasing down rumors of a particularly vagabond youkai and according to the last message we received from them they finally managed to track it down and kill it a few days ago," said Kimiko as she finally finished her tenth bowl before starting on the bento her mother had packed her.

"Cool, I can't wait to meet them!" remarked Naruto as he enjoyed his own bento. However, this one was prepared by Hinata, making it even more delicious for him.

"Well, since today is a training day with my parents, it's likely you will," said Kimiko.

"I'm interested in meeting them, but I'm more excited about finally being able to get to work on the class project with Skuld-Sensei," said Ryeka.

"Does that have anything to do with that big crate I saw her dancing around with earlier?" asked Akira, who had thought the computer teacher had gone crazy.

"Yeah, it's a digitization laser," said Ryeka. Seeing the blank looks from her friends, she settled in to explain. "It's a special laser used to turn objects into computer code. The project's goal is to develop an interactive virtual world where we can incorporate many things. After we digitize all the stuff, we'll place it in a virtual world and build an interface to interact with the items. Because we will be digitizing objects, say an orange, you'll be able to peel the orange, smell it, eat it, and even find seeds. Programming all the sensory data would be next to impossible, but with this laser we can get the full experience."

"Sounds cool," said Miyuki.

"Yeah, thanks to grandma I've got all the equipment I'll need at Grandfather's shrine to make us a virtual training area, I can't set it up here since we don't have room at my house…" said Ryeka with a sigh.

"I'm sure it will be a blast," said Naruto before glancing up and sighing. "Shugo alert," he muttered before the kendoist stalked up to the group with a frown.

"Uzumaki, we have unfinished business!" he declared while leveling his bokken at Naruto, who frowned in thought before slamming his fist into his hand.

"Our duel, sorry, things got busy over the weekend and I forgot," said Naruto as he gently removed Hinata from his lap and rested his hand on the handle of Nenshousaiga in shinai form. "Let's take care of this now!"

"Indeed, but not here!" said Shugo as he indicated for Naruto to follow him, with the rest of the group following. Shugo quickly led them to the large open field where so many of Ranma's fights at Furinkan had taken place. As the two combatants assumed their stances on opposite sides of the field, a horde of interested students gathered to watch, only to quiet down as Ranko stepped in between the combatants and raised her hand.

"Uzumaki Naruto vs. Kuno Shugo, this fight is until one admits defeat or is knocked unconscious, any objections?" she asked.

"No, I shall smite this peasant and date the beautiful Hyuuga Hinata!" declared Shugo.

"Just try it," said Naruto with an almost feral grin.

"Hajime (begin)!" yelled Ranko as she dropped her arm before leaping back out of the field, just as Shugo charged Naruto with his bokken raised.

"Atatatatatatatatatata!" yelled Shugo as his bokken became a high speed blur from the rapid thrusts. Naruto however had adopted a low stance and shot forward, taking advantage of his smaller size and swinging Nenshousaiga at the ground.

"Amatsu Kitsune Ryu: Dokitsunesen (Heavenly Fox style: Earth Fox Strike)!" yelled Naruto as he sent a barrage of dirt and rocks at Shugo, who leapt back, only to find Naruto soaring into the air above him. "Amatsu Kitsune Ryu: Enokorogusa Tsuchi (Heavenly Fox style: Fox Tail Hammer)!" yelled Naruto as he brought Nenshousaiga down for a knockout blow, only to have Shugo slash upward with his bokken.

"Kuno family secret move: Wooden Sword Shredder!" yelled Shugo as he used Nenshousaiga as a ramp to get to Naruto's head in an attempt to land his own knockout blow. However, Nenshousaiga was really a steel blade and couldn't be cut by the bokken, causing Shugo's eyes to widen. Acting quickly, Naruto flipped backwards, turning his downward slash into an upward spin that caused the tip of Shugo's bokken to miss the tip of his chin by centimeters. Naruto's foot lashed out and smashed into Shugo's chest, sending the older boy staggering backwards and allowing Naruto to regain his footing.

"Amatsu Kitsune Ryu: Kaen-giri (Heavenly Fox style: Flame Slash)!" cried Naruto as he swung Nenshousaiga and sent an arc of flame at Shugo, who raised his bokken in defense, only to see it reduced to charcoal.

"I fight on!" declared Shugo as he raised his charcoal stick over his head before falling face first into the ground, a trait very common in Kuno men when facing an opponent they underestimate.

Ranko cautiously approached the Kuno heir and flipped him over to reveal a slight indentation in the top of his head. Naruto's upward spin had been propelled by the impact of Nenshousaiga with Shugo's head, which combined with the kick to his chest and the rush of heat to his head as the flame had shot past him to knock him out. Ranko raised Naruto's arm and declared, "Shousha (Winner), Uzumaki Naruto!" to the cheers of the crowd. As Hinata rushed forward to hug Naruto and berate him for accepting such a stupid duel, even though he had no choice, Ranko slung Shugo over her shoulder for transportation to Hotaru's office, where he would be stuck in the recovery room with his upper torso and head bandaged up like a mummy.

(0o0o0)

"Naruto, that was awesome!" said Jason as Zenith nodded his agreement.

"Eh, Shugo has some skill, but he's focused too much on Kendo and wasn't ready for me to go into the air or kick him," said Naruto. "He forgot that I'm learning Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu."

"Yeah, the expression on his face when that fire attack hit him was priceless," said Zenith.

"How did you do that, Naruto?" asked Jason.

"I simply focus my energy in my sword and cause it to ignite as I slash the air, sending the fire whipping out in a crescent blade," replied Naruto.

"And it is because of Mr. Uzumaki's outstanding performance that we will be covering enchanted weapons today," said Gosunkugi as he entered the room with Natasha. Naruto noticed the woman looked a little flustered and his nose detected the faint scent of arousal, so he supposed they might have been cuddling together during lunch or feeding one another. Gosunkugi started writing on the chalk board as he said, "Probably the most well known example of an enchanted weapon here in Japan is Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (Grass-Cutting Sword) though its actual name is Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi (Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven)." Naruto tensed slightly at this, that was the name of Orochimaru's blade and it was lost with him deep within the chasm his Hachibi empowered body had fallen into. "A similar sword would be Excalibur from the King Arthur legends. Both blades are examples of the divine right of the ruler of the land. Other impressive swords in Japanese mythology include Tessaiga, Tenseiga, and Sou'unga that belonged to the Inu no Taishou (Dog General), who is said to have been a Daiyōkai on the level of the ancient Bijū himself, though he was not one of their number. Tessaiga was able to slay a hundred demons with a single swing and was called the Sword of Earth, Tenseiga could save one hundred souls from death and was called the Sword of Heaven, and Sou'unga could raise one hundred tormented souls of the undead that would be under the wielder's complete and total control and was called the Sword of Hell."

"So was it the swords that made the Inu no Taisho so strong?" asked Jason.

"No, Mr. Kimball, the Inu no Taisho was powerful in his own right, especially considering Tessaiga and Tenseiga were forged from his own fangs. He was also the only one recorded to have been able to master Sou'unga's fearsome power," answered Gosunkugi. The rest of the class was filled with a discussion of basic enchantments for weapons and how to deal with an enemy wielding an enchanted weapon.

(0o0o0)

The rest of the day was not a normal one for the kids, the school had to be shut down when the chemistry class's super plant growth formula accidentally got spilled on a batch of Kudzu clippings the botany club was growing. The vine had started growing rapidly and soon covered the entire school. It had taken Shugo, Naruto, and Ranko an hour to hack their way through the resulting super weed to free the students trapped inside as well as some help from Kenshin and Hotaru. The two students of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu had to endure Shugo's constant ranting about how this would be good training and help him impress Hinata, which earned him a knuckle sand which from Naruto. The school nurse was very adept with a naginata, using the polearms's long reach to keep the rapidly growing vines away from her boyfriend as he cut through the vines covering doors. Luckily, the chemistry club was able to whip up a counter formula, but it took the rest of the afternoon to take out the plant, and it would take even longer to clear up the mess, hence the group spending the night in feudal Japan since the kids didn't have school the next day. They had just gotten out of the well when the discussion from Magical Awareness came to Naruto's mind.

"Inuyasha-sensei, can you show us Tessaiga's attacks?" asked Naruto as the group exited the bone eater's well in feudal Japan.

"Why do you wanna see 'em?" asked Inuyasha.

"Gosunkugi-sensei told us about Tessaiga, Tenseiga, and Sou'unga today in class and we'd like to see Tessaiga in action," said Miyuki.

"Well, I guess I could…" muttered Inuyasha, only to stop and turn to face the sky. "looks like Miroku, Sango, Kohaku, and Hiryuu are back!" he said as he pointed to two rapidly approaching dots that soon became two large saber tooth nekomata, one carrying three people on its back and the other carrying a single smaller person. "It's about time you guys got back, did that youkai give you that much trouble?" demanded Inuyasha as he strode towards the landing nekomata.

"No, the youkai was pretty weak, just good at hiding," said a brown haired woman wearing a black bodysuit with pink armor and a large boomerang on her back.

"Like Gakusanjin, this youkai was incredibly good at masking his youki," said the man behind her, who was dressed as a monk and carrying a traditional shakujō (monk staff). "Even I can't sense a youkai that can reduce its youki to such levels."

"That's true Miroku, but we still took too long to track it down," said the woman.

"Now Sango, the number of youkai attacks has been decreasing lately, we can probably leave the next few to Kohaku and start making those other nine children," said Miroku as he caressed his wife, which earned him a prompt smack over the head with her giant boomerang.

"Miroku, I've told you before, save that kind of talk for the bedroom!" barked Sango with a blush on her face.

"Yeah, I want to have more nephews and maybe a few nieces to spoil, so don't annoy her into cutting you off," said a younger man in an outfit similar to Sango's only with yellow armor and a kusarigama on his back. He was promptly whacked on the head with a shakujō by the last person, who had been riding on the smaller nekomata.

"Sheesh, Kohaku-oji-san, you're a worse pervert than Otou-san," said the boy, who wore monk robes over a blue armored bodysuit outfit.

"Well, just because I don't have a girlfriend waiting for me at home like you do isn't a reason to hit me, Hiryuu," countered Kohaku, causing Kimiko to blush and Hiryuu to smack his uncle again, only to have Kohaku leap back with a laugh and run off towards the village.

"I swear, Miroku, you've been a bad influence on Kohaku!" groaned Sango.

"At least Kohaku-kun isn't asking all the girls he meets to bear his child," remarked Kagome with a grin as she walked up to Sango and pulled her honorary sister into a hug.

"True, I'm still amazed Hiryuu isn't flirting with all the girls his age though," said Sango.

Hiryuu snorted as he said, "That's because I see what happens to Otou-san and I've heard the stories about when he was worse." As he spoke, he hopped off his black and white tiger striped nekomata mount, which was covered in swirling flames as she shrank down to the size of a kitten and hopped on his shoulder. The one Sango, Miroku, and Kohaku had been riding mimicked the transformation and jumped up to Sango's shoulder.

"And who are all of these young ones?" asked Miroku as he surveyed the whole group.

"Ah, the kitsune hanyou is Uzumaki Naruto, the girl with lavender eyes is Hyuuga Hinata, the cat girl is Saotome Miyuki, the other boy is her brother Akira, the older red head is their aunt/big sister Ranko, and the cyan haired girl is Masaki Ryeka. I've been training them in youkai slaying but now that you guys are back we can get to hear from the real pros at the job," said Inuyasha.

"Okay, it never hurts to go over the basics," said Sango as she led the group to a clearing in the forest. There she started lecturing the group on the characteristics of common youkai and their weaknesses, such as canine youkai having very sensitive noses and being vulnerable to powerful odors, snake youkai being vulnerable to cold, feline youkai being easily blinded by bright bursts of light, and water based youkai usually needing to stay damp to survive and being largely immobile on land. She then went over the basic items of a youkai taijiya, including paralysis powder, a chain for binding youkai, a Wakizashi, and a retractable dagger hidden in her gauntlet useful for a surprise weapon. Naruto was instantly hooked on this last item and thought it was awesome and a perfect ninja tool. After asking Sango a few questions about how it worked, he wrote furiously on a scroll before grinning.

"Tenten and Aki-chan are going to love this," he said as he sealed up the scroll to be sent in a letter back to Konoha.

Inuyasha then showed off Tessaiga's Kaze no Kizu attack that sent five huge energy waves out to devastate the forest. Everyone's jaws were on the ground at the result of the attack, though Kimiko seemed unaffected and said that was a weak one compared to ones he'd done against enemy youkai.

"It's true, a youkai's attacks are more powerful when used against another youkai," said Inuyasha. "When two youki auras clash, they form a rift between themselves that amplifies any attack."

"Does that mean that anyone could do the Kaze no Kizu?" asked Akira.

"No, sensing the rift is very difficult, only a youkai or hanyou could do it. Kimiko can sense it and attack through the rift, as can Shippo. Shippo's attack however is Kokoro no Kizu (Wound of the Heart) and works by Shippo biting or slashing his enemy through the rift. My brother Sesshomaru can sense the rift and when he got his hands on Tessaiga managed to do the attack on a really powerful level. So with enough training Naruto might be able to see the rift." Naruto simply grinned at this, but any further discussion was interrupted by Kagome calling everyone back to the village for lunch. The whole group loved lunch in Feudal Japan, Kagome would usually serve them venison burgers she made herself from the deer that lived in the forest as well as ramen for Inuyasha, Naruto, and Kimiko. After lunch, Kagome would train Kimiko, Hinata, and now Hiryuu in their holy powers while the rest of the kids did fighting drills in the forest with Inuyasha and Shippo.

This whole time, the pets of the group played together and gossiped about their owners. Sango's nekomata companion, named Kirara, had the most experience and was teaching her daughter Kudora (Little Tiger), Kimiko's pet dragon Flamie, Gishou, and Ren-oh-ki the basics of supporting the group like she did during the quest to destroy Naraku and regain the Shikon no Tama. Gishou, with the help of the other pets, had managed to learn to fly through the air in his large form like Kirara and Kudora, something Naruto praised him for since it meant faster travel.

(0o0o0)

"I'm very impressed with all of you," said Inuyasha as the group exited the well to spend the night at the Higurashi shrine. Even though the house was now in the name of the Kamiya family, the shrine kept its original name. "You've gotten a good grasp of group tactics, especially when you took on that boar demon. Though I wish you had called for help instead of trying to take it on your own, Kimiko." Kimiko blushed at this, truthfully she had been bored and craving the action of fighting a youkai and wanted to keep her father out of it. Instead she ended up being saved by Hiryuu putting up a barrier so Hinata could tend to the wounds the boar's tusks made in her sides while Naruto, Akira, and Miyuki kept the boar busy long enough for Ryeka to slice its head off with a plasma saber after negotiation failed to get the boar to stop attacking the group so it could continue on to the village and wreck havoc there.

"Sorry, Otou-san," said Kimiko.

"Tomorrow after you get back from school I'll take all of you to meet Tōtōsai, the old man who forged my sword as well as the Tenseiga that Sesshomaru wields. At the very least he can check up on your sword, Naruto, and I'm having him make you a dagger Kimiko, you're not going out without a close quarters weapon again," said Inuyasha.

"Otou-san, I'm not a little girl anymore!" shrieked Kimiko, causing all those with animal ears to wince. It even caused Miyuki to jump so badly she ended up clinging to the ceiling!

"Don't do that!" Miyuki cried as she landed back on the ground. "Great! Now I have to brush my tail again!"

"Oi, want to ruin the rest of our ears while you're at it?" growled Naruto as he bonked Kimiko on the head. With a growl, Kimiko pounced on Naruto and the two started rough housing, luckily in the front yard of the shrine, while their friends stared at them in dismay.

"Kids these days," muttered Inuyasha as he went inside to talk with Kagome.

(0o0o0)

"This is where Tōtōsai lives?" asked Naruto as he stared at the large volcano spewing smoke into the sky.

"Yep, but only Kimiko, Kagome, Shippo, you, and I can enter since the fumes are poisonous to humans. If Tōtōsai finds your sword interesting he might be willing to make some stuff for the rest of you," said Inuyasha.

"I'll be staying here with everyone else to continue Hinata's miko training and make sure there's a good meal waiting for you when you get back," said Kagome. The group going to see Tōtōsai nodded and leapt towards the mountain in the powerful jumps only a half demon or youkai could manage.

(0o0o0)

"Yo, Tōtōsai, got some business for you," yelled Inuyasha as he landed in front of the large worm skeleton that marked the entrance to Tōtōsai's workshop.

"Eh? Inuyasha? What are you doing here?" asked an old man as he slowly got up from where he was enjoying a cup of tea after having finished his work for the evening.

"I need a dagger for Kimiko, and my new student has a sword I need you to look at," said Inuyasha.

"Well, the dagger is easy, come here Kimiko," said Tōtōsai as he pulled out a pair of giant tongs as Kimiko walked up to him, her drooping tail indicating she did not want to do this. Naruto's eyes widened as Tōtōsai yanked out Kimiko's sharp canine tooth and held it in his hand to inspect it. Suddenly, the tongs flashed and Inuyasha cursed as a much larger fang was now in Tōtōsai's hand.

Inuyasha grabbed Tōtōsai and slammed him against the cave wall as he roared, "Old coot, why did you do that?"

Totosai snorted and said, "Calm down Inuyasha, just Kimiko's fang wouldn't be enough. Just like you had to surpass your father's power to master Tessaiga, Kimiko will have to surpass your power to master her own weapon. I can give her the ability to combine her spiritual powers with the Kaze no Kizu, making it even more deadly to youkai, though it won't have the same magnitude as yours."

"Alright, old man, just get it done!" snarled Inuyasha.

"Now, what's this about a sword I need to see?" asked Tōtōsai as he set the fangs aside.

"My mother had this sword made for me about a year ago, it's made from one of her fangs and the hilt is braided with strands of her tail fur," said Naruto as he passed the smith Nenshousaiga.

"Now this is a masterwork blade," said Tōtōsai as he reverently drew the sword from its sheath. "Hmm, enchanted to channel fox fire and keep your youkai side under control, very impressive."

"How can you tell all that?" demanded Naruto.

"All swordsmiths can give a sword three abilities. Inuyasha's Tessaiga for example seals his Youkai blood, absorbs attacks from foes it defeats, and can use the Kaze no Kizu and by extension the Bakuryūha (Explosive Flowing Wave). Your sword, Naruto, still has room for one more ability, though the smith who forged this left instructions in the forge as what the ability should be."

"How can they do that?" asked Kimiko.

"A master craftsman puts some of their spirit into each thing they make. It allows us to always know just what we've done to our creations and what they can withstand," said Tōtōsai. "Apparently, I survived for the next 500 years, since this sword was made by me and I have no knowledge of it."

"This is why I hate time travel, stuff like this makes my head hurt," muttered Inuyasha.

"So, what kind of abilities can be added to Nenshousaiga?" asked Naruto eagerly.

"Actually, it isn't so much the ability isn't there as it is sealed," replied Tōtōsai as he peered at Nenshousaiga closely. "It seems the last ability is to mentally command the sword's action for when you gain your true kitsune form and can't use hands to wield it. You'll unlock it when you gain your full kitsune form."

"Awesome!" said Naruto with a look of glee on his face. "So how do I do that?"

"You'll have to earn your eighth tail at the very least, kitsune hanyou are restricted from shifting into their kitsune form with any lower number," said Shippo. "You'll have to grow a lot stronger if you hope to learn this skill here in Japan."

Naruto gripped Nenshousaiga tightly, grinning at the prospect of having his sword move to his mind's commands.

"Well, come back tomorrow evening and I'll have Kimiko's dagger done," said Tōtōsai as he picked up the two fangs and headed towards his forge and anvil to start working. This was the signal for everyone to head back to the group camp, where Shippo dragged Naruto off, citing kitsune business that they needed to handle alone.

"What's this about Shippo?" demanded Naruto. For all the fact that as the kitsune prince he outranked Shippo, he highly respected the older kitsune for his skill.

"It's time for the annual kitsune youjutsu exam. I took it during the quest to defeat Naraku and it helped me get a better grasp of my kitsune abilities. You're going to take it and we'll see how you rank," said Shippo. "Dad knows what's going on and will take care of everything else with the rest of the group."

"Interesting, lead the way," said Naruto. The two soon arrived at an inn, where a large number of young kitsune were gathered. Almost instantly, a leaf smashed into Naruto's Hitai-ate with number 77 on it, causing Shippo to smirk.

"77, that was my number when I first took this," said Shippo. However, it appeared most of the kitsune were not happy to have a hanyou there.

"Why is this half-breed here?" demanded one of the stronger looking ones.

"What's the big deal?" demanded Naruto.

"You couldn't even qualify for Junior eighth rank, you're only 13 years old!" sneered the kitsune, who bore the number 23 and had eight tails.

"Oh, you're asking for it!" growled Naruto.

"Try me half-breed!" snarled the kitsune, causing Naruto to form his favorite hand seal.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" muttered Naruto as three clones of him appeared and joined him in rapidly circling number 23.

"Is that all you've got?" taunted number 23. His response was a fist to the chin, sending him soaring into the air where other Naruto clones appeared and proceeded to kick him around like a pinball. One final clone kicked number 23 towards the hard earth, only for him to halt in mid air with his nose inches from the ground as Naruto held him up.

"Anyone else want a piece of me?" demanded Naruto before a piece of paper drifted down from the air. Naruto grabbed the paper and glanced at it before showing it to Shippo. "What does this mean, Shippo-shishou?"

"Upper Junior 8th Rank," said Shippo with a grin. "There are 30 ranks, Lower Weak Novice, Upper Weak Novice, Lower Strong Novice, Upper Strong Novice, lower and upper Junior 2nd through 8th Rank, and Senior 1st Rank. It normally takes a hundred years of training in trickery and deceit to reach Senior 1st Rank, but you're one rank from the top, compared to these guys who have years of experience on you." Naruto grinned at this, compared to the Chunin Exams this would be easy.

At that moment, a burst of blue flame announced the arrival of a kitsune. This one was a blue haired man with nine tails. "Alright everyone, a group is coming to the inn now and they have a strange group. The adults have actually been here before and are worth only minor points, so focus on the kids. You've got a inu-hanyou miko, a kunoichi, a monk taijiya, three martial artists, and a scholar. Any serious harm of the contestants that forces them to retire from participation will lead to penalizations."

"Shippo-shishou," growled Naruto as he pulled the older kitsune down to his eye level, "Why are my friends the targets of this test?"

"Mom and dad figured it would be good training for them," said Shippo. "Besides, one of the best ways to deceive your enemy is to deceive your friends first…"

"Fine, but if Hinata hates me after this I'm having a talk with Oka-san," growled Naruto.

(0o0o0)

"I'm glad this inn was nearby," said Kimiko as she eased into the inn's hot springs with Hinata, Miyuki, Ranko, and Ryeka. They were nothing compared to the ones at the Misaki shrine Ryeka was used to, but still enjoyable.

"Yeah, it's nice to not have to sleep under the stars sometimes," said Miyuki, "Though it isn't always bad. Mom and dad took us on several training trips where we spent nights under the stars looking up at them."

"I'm used to it from camping out on missions with my team, but when there is an inn nearby we usually stay there," said Hinata.

"You're lucky, after the 10 year training trip Oyaji took Ranma on, Oka-san only allowed him to take me on short trips," said Ranko. "It took Ranma talking to her to get oka-san to allow me to go on an extended training trip with nii-chan's family over summer breaks."

There was silence for a few moments before the door opened and a girl in a servant kimono stepped out with a tray. "Would you like some tea?" she asked. After getting nods from the girls, she poured them each a cup and placed it beside each girl's resting spot. All four reached for their cups and took a sip, only to gasp as they found themselves sipping sake. A piece of paper floated down from the air to the hand of the girl, who smirked and said, "Yata, I advanced!" in a masculine voice before becoming a wisp of fox fire that shot into the air.

Almost instantly, a younger looking woman carrying a broom slammed open the door to the hot springs and swiped at the fox fire, causing it to laugh and somehow blow a raspberry at her before shooting away. "Stupid kitsune," growled the girl. "I'm so sorry, that kitsune comes around a lot and likes to trick guests. I'll bring you some tea," said the girl as she hurriedly cleaned up the sake cups and took them inside.

"Think this might have something to do with where Shippo took Naruto?" asked Miyuki after spitting a few times to make sure there was no trace of sake left on her tongue.

"Possibly," said Kimiko, "Now that I think about it, there is a heavy kitsune scent around this place, I thought they just might be a fox infestation, but I can smell kitsune youki now, even if I can't tell from where…"

"Great, so we'll probably meet up with Naruto-kun since even if he isn't here now he'll be interested in a kitsune gathering," said Hinata.

"Here is your tea," said the girl as she returned with a new pot and set of cups for the girls. Again, they took the cups to drink, only to suddenly find themselves paralyzed. "Success!" said the girl as a piece of paper once again drifted into her hands. She to disappeared in a wisp of fox fire.

"I get the feeling something isn't right here," said Hinata as she used her medic nin training to purge the paralysis poison from her body before doing the same for the other girls.

(0o0o0)

"Sheesh, don't sneak up on me like that," muttered Akira as he looked at several dazed kitsune who had assumed forms of popular spirits to try to spook him from behind. The Saotome heir had clobbered all of the, earning them slips of paper with the word FAIL printed on them. Walking back to the boy's room, he found Hiryuu sipping tea while chatting with a large group of girls, all of which appeared to have fox tails. Before Akira could say a word, Hiryuu noticed him and smiled at the girls.

"Thank you all for the entertainment. But my friend challenged me to a game of Go earlier and we need to get started before dinner," said the monk Taijiya. The girls all smiled and left, but not before receiving pieces of paper that obviously made them happy.

"What was that about?" asked Akira. "And how much will you give me not to tell Kimiko you were flirting with a bunch of vixens?"

Hiryuu smiled as he said, "This inn is apparently the site of a kitsune youjutsu exam. The kitsune try to trick us to advance their rank. All of those were a group of kitsune sisters we met a few years ago and I decided to let them have their fun."

It was at this moment that an angry Kimiko slammed open the door to the room and stomped towards Hiryuu while yelling, "Hiryuu, what were all those vixens doing in here?" and raising a fist.

Hiryuu's staff suddenly smacked Kimiko on the head and she burst into smoke to reveal a kitsune boy who promptly received a sheet with FAIL on it. Hiryuu sighed while saying, "Such poor acting," and tossing the kitsune out of the room.

"How did you know that wasn't Kimiko?" asked Akira.

The monk taijiya smirked as he said, "Kimiko doesn't storm in unless it's an emergency, plus if she was angry at me she'd be flexing her claws, not clenching her fists. Like her father, she likes to shred through problems."

"I see," said Akira as he grabbed the Go board in the corner of the room, only to have it suddenly become a giant firecracker that exploded in a smoke cloud, covering the two boys in soot and earning an adorable kitsune girl a pass paper. She looked so proud of herself that the boys couldn't manage to summon up the anger to hit her and simply walked out to take a shower. If they had stayed they would have seen her return to the form a teenage vixen with a smirk as she got her second pass paper for a successful illusion and tricking them. She then joined her sisters in planning their next prank on the group.

(0o0o0)

"Looks like the boys got caught in a prank," said Ryeka as they passed the soot faced duo on their way back to their own room. They had been forced to deal with a kitsune transformed into a kappa trying to grope them during the rest of their bath and left the perverted kitsune beat up and covered in Ofuda to keep him from being a bother any more.

"So, what do we do now?" asked Miyuki.

"I think I'll read a bit," said Kimiko as she pulled out her giant paperback Lord of the Rings anthology from her back pack.

"I'm going to find a nice limb to relax on," said Miyuki as she exited the room with a wave of her paws.

Ryeka had already pulled her solar powered laptop from her back pack and was playing some computer game, leaving Hinata to go take a walk around the inn. The lavender eyed girl frowned as she heard sobs coming from the inn's tea garden and found a silver haired kitsune with three tails dressed in a kimono that bore the emblem for Kage on the back surrounded by a flame pattern crying her eyes out. "Are you okay?" Hinata asked the kitsune.

"…it's nothing you can help me with," sniffed the kitsune, rubbing the tears from her eyes.

"How about a friendly ear?" asked Hinata as she sat down next to the silver vixen with a smile. "My name is Hinata, what's yours?"

The kitsune sniffed again before smiling slightly and saying, "Ginpatsu (Silver Hair)."

(0o0o0)

Naruto yawned as he sat on a tree branch watching the rest of the kitsune trying to trick his friends. One had managed to trick Inuyasha into walking into the hot spring with fake directions when he wanted to get to the kids' rooms, earning that bright kitsune boy a nice increase in rank since Inuyasha counted as a full youkai for purposes of the test and the skillful bit of misdirection.

"Oi, blondie, aren't you even going to come down?" demanded Naruto's number one annoyance this evening, number 23. "I've already caught up to you!"

"Yeah, but you only jumped up one rank to catch me, I jumped from bottom of the pack to the top," said Naruto while waving his hand in dismissal.

"I bet you can't even pull off a seduction!" challenged number 23.

"Oh?" asked Naruto as he finally dropped to the ground and stared at the older kitsune.

Number 23 smirked as he said, "One of the girls is listening to this pathetic vixen sob her heart out. If you can seduce her I'll acknowledge you as superior to myself."

"Alright, lead me to her," said Naruto.

(0o0o0)

"So the kitsune boys tease you because you only like girls and won't try to seduce any of the guys here?" asked Hinata gently after she had listened to Ginpatsu's story.

The silver vixen nodded as she sniffled again. "They constantly pick on me and say how no girl would ever like me and I'll die never having kits or finding love," she wailed.

Hinata wrapped her arms around the poor kitsune and hugged her, rubbing her back through her silver hair as she said, "I'm sure that somewhere you'll find a wonderful woman or girl who will accept you. Just get to know them first before springing your preferences on them and you should be fine."

"Thank you, Hinata-chan," said the kitsune, causing Hinata to smile.

"I should know, there's this gorgeous blonde back home who's the only girl I'd consider living the rest of my life with," said Hinata.

"Really?" asked Ginpatsu.

"Mmmmhhhmm, she's very nice and has been my friend all my life, I love seeing her," replied Hinata.

"Have you ever kissed her?" asked Ginpatsu.

"Only once," said Hinata with a smile.

"What was it like?" asked Ginpatsu.

"Like this," said Hinata before she gently leaned forward and brushed her lips against Ginpatsu's lips.

"Damn, looks like you're too late!" exclaimed a new voice, causing Hinata to pull back from the blushing kitsune and see Naruto standing next to another kitsune.

"I wouldn't say that," said Naruto.

"What, no way that filthy ningen would kiss a worthless hanyou like you even if she would kiss a fruit tart like her," said 23 as he pointed to the blushing Ginpatsu.

"Wanna bet?" asked Naruto before he walked up to Hinata and swooped her into a deep French kiss.

"Mmm, nice kiss Naruto-kun," said Hinata as he set her back on her feet, causing a slip of paper with the word fail to drop down to Naruto.

"Hahahaha, you can't even seduce a ningen!" sneered 23, only go be silenced as Ginpatsu erupted in smoke and became a seven tailed blonde vixen with her hair in two pigtails and Naruto disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"And you were the one talking to a clone this whole time while I got to spend the evening with my girlfriend," said the blonde as she pulled Hinata onto her lap with a smile.

"You're really a girl?" demanded 23.

"Nope, but I've used this trick and better men than you have fallen for it," said Naruto-chan before she turned Hinata around and kissed her again, this time with tongue, causing 23 to rocket backwards from a bloody nose and knock himself out, along with several other kitsune males that were watching. Another slip of paper fluttered down to Naruto-chan's hand and she smiled as she saw the words Senior 1st Rank on the slip.

"I'm not sure if I should be mad or not," said Hinata with a smile.

"Well, considering I fed you that fake sob story, yeah, but you probably knew it was me fairly quickly, right?" asked Naruto-chan.

"Yes, not many people would wear the symbols for Shadow surrounded by fire to indicate Hokage, you sat with your legs wide open which no girl would ever do, plus I could sense it was you," said Hinata with a smile before she snuggled up to Naruto-chan.

(0o0o0)

"I see, that's pretty impressive, to get all your points by pranking older and supposedly more skilled kitsune," said the blue nine tailed kitsune from earlier as he looked at a scroll detailing how Naruto had scored his points for the night before looking at Naruto, who grinned.

"I'm used to pranking high level ninja, over confident brats are easy pickings," said Naruto.

"I must admit, your performances this evening show you're worthy of your rank. You'll make a fine kitsune, Uzumaki-kun," said the kitsune as he bowed to Naruto and left.

(0o0o0)

"I'm impressed Naruto, not many people would think of pranking the other examinees since as kitsune they're worth more than a standard youkai like dad and mom," said Shippo with a grin as the group ate dinner together inside the inn. The group of kitsune sisters who had visited Hiryuu earlier were serving them and complimenting Naruto on his performance that evening.

"You should have seen some of his pranks at home, he one time painted a giant monument that overlooks our village without anyone noticing until he was nearly done," said Hinata. "And he was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit that screamed, HERE I AM!"

"Why would a ninja wear something like that?" asked Ryeka, failing to see the logic behind it.

"My parents are two of the most influential people in the village, I wanted to make a name for myself rather than as their son," said Naruto.

"I can sympathize with that, living in the shadow of my father and brother was real hard growing up, especially since the humans I was raised among treated me like trash," said Inuyasha.

"You should have seen him when we first met, I had to use the beads of subjugation at least five times a day!" exclaimed Kagome with a grin.

"And he'd always beat me up whenever I said or did something he didn't like," added Shippo before taking a bite of rice and pork cutlet.

"And he'd never listen to our wisdom and rush in head first," said Miroku.

"For a long time he couldn't make up his mind between Kagome and Kikyo," said Sango with a slight frown as she remembered the many episodes of anger between the two involving the undead miko.

"If you guys are done dragging my reputation through the dirt," growled Inuyasha, causing the teens to laugh.

"Yeah, we're done for now, besides if we keep talking we won't get anything else to eat," said Shippo as he gestured to where Naruto was making impressive inroads on any dishes near him, currently devouring a bowl of wonton soup.

This caused Ranko, Miyuki, and Akira to break out the Saotome school Fast Food technique and it became a battle to secure enough food for the rest as Kimiko joined in with the speed eating. Kagome quickly snapped and smacked all the teens over the head with a paper fan to make them eat like normal people.

(0o0o0)

"Thank you, please come again!" said the kitsune sisters as they bowed to the group as they left the inn.

"I'm tempted to come back and rub everyone's faces in that a Hanyou did so well, then tell them who my mom is," muttered Naruto to Hinata, causing her to giggle, much to everyone's relief. She had been simmering ever since one of the more snobbish kitsune girls who had been observing the exam sauntered in wearing a skimpy kimono and oozing sexuality from every pore. She had bent down in front of Naruto so he got an eyeful of her chest and asked him if he wanted to see what a real vixen was like. Naruto had promptly used Sexy no Jutsu to become an even sexier vixen and told her he didn't need that kind of lesson. The snubbed vixen had strutted out and while Hinata appreciated Naruto getting rid of her, she had been annoyed that the vixen had made a move on him when he clearly had his tails around Hinata's waist, meaning that he had chosen her as his mate.

(0o0o0)

"Alright, Kimiko and I will go to Tōtōsai's place this evening, for now we're going to discuss dealing with human foes, undead, and possessed people," said Inuyasha.

"When we were fighting Naraku he loved to manipulate people to do his dirty work for him," said Kagome.

"He once raised the Shichi'nintai (Band of Seven) mercenaries from their grave to fight us, turning them into zombies," said Miroku, only to see Naruto tense up. "What's wrong Naruto?" asked the monk.

"A madman named Orochimaru in our land had the ability to bring people back from the dead as puppets under his control," said Naruto slowly. "He used that ability to kill the man I viewed as a grandfather and later to bring my best friend's parents back to life in an attempt to kill us. My friend was forced to destroy them with a massive attack…"

Kagome scowled and said, "Is this bastard still alive?"

"No, I opened a black hole inside his head," countered Naruto.

"That's impossible," said Ryeka. "A human couldn't control a black hole. Maybe a Bijū like your mother could, but not you."

"I wasn't supposed to, but I was so mad… and nothing else seemed to work. And it was actually more like a singularity that existed for a split second, just enough to destroy his head," admitted Naruto.

"Still, it's impossible," said Ryeka.

"And so are solid clones?" asked another Naruto behind her.

"Or walking up a tree without any hands or tools?" asked another from above her on a tree branch.

"Or walking on water?" asked a third as it did a handstand on the nearby river.

"Naruto-kun doesn't hold the title of Number One Unpredictable Ninja back home for nothing," said Hinata with a smile. The rest of the group chuckled, aside from Ryeka, who had a small vein throbbing on her head as she typed away at her laptop and muttered about know-it-all ninja.

Kagome smiled before steering the conversation back to the original topic. "Usually, a resurrected person or youkai has something that binds them to this world. For the seven resurrected men we fought, it was a shard of the Shikon no Tama. Removing the binding object will allow them to rest in peace. However, some don't have this weakness. And example is when a youkai witch brought my previous self, Kikyo, back to life. Kikyo stayed alive by devouring the souls of the recently deceased. Usually a holy weapon can destroy zombies like those."

"Or a giant ball of plasma," suggested Ryeka, causing everyone to roll their eyes.

Miroku chuckled and said, "That may be true Ryeka, but most of us don't have the ability to generate balls of plasma and energy swords."

"Regardless, you can usually tell if a resurrected person is around if you've got a sensitive nose is to watch out for the scent of graves," said Inuyasha. "But even that can be masked with clothes from a living person. One of them used that trick on me and almost killed Kagome, Miroku, and Sango."

"There's a ghost cat that lives in a temple near us, his soul is tied to the giant bell that houses his spirit and he can use it to control people," said Ranko.

"But he's actually pretty friendly, especially since a nice female ghost cat wandered into the area and took a liking to him," said Miyuki.

From there, Naruto explained what he knew of the basics of Orochimaru's method of resurrecting people and its weaknesses, followed by the adults lecturing on various abilities of undead they had encountered on their quest. The lecture took the rest of the afternoon and as evening came Inuyasha took Kimiko to get her new weapon.

(0o0o0)

"This is Imiheijin (Purification Sword Blade)," said Tōtōsai as he handed Kimiko a curved dagger. "Channel your power into the blade." Kimiko did as instructed and smiled as the blade glowed pink. "Any youkai stabbed with that will be in great agony if you don't stop channeling your power into the blade. Be very careful of using the power during spars with your family and friends," warned Tōtōsai.

"Awesome," said Kimiko as she moved the dagger through a kata Ranma had showed her a few days ago and grinned as the pink glow left a slight afterimage behind.

"Well, come back and see me sometime if you need your blades sharpened," said Tōtōsai as he scratched his backside before going to get something to eat while the two hanyou left.

(0o0o0)

As the group exited the well, Naruto suddenly shivered. "Are you cold, Naruto?" asked Miyuki.

"No, I just felt a sudden sense of foreboding, like something big is coming," said Naruto.

(0o0o0)

On a cruise ship approaching Japan, an old man grinned as he prepared to visit his students before going back to his private hideaway. He had a bunch of silk darlings liberated from the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show models after they changed into their costumes and he'd make a quick stop in Nerima to try to snag a pair of his favorite redhead's panties before heading home to enjoy his haul. At that moment, a woman in a bikini passed by him and he leapt into the air with a cry of "Sw**eeto!"**

**Shorter than normal, but I was running out of steam for this and decided to cut it off. Ranma ½ fans will know who is coming back, expect much feminine wrath next chapter. Next chapter will also likely be longer than this one; I have lots of action planned.**


	4. Trial 3: Curses and Computers

_**Roar of the Dragon: I'm sorry for the long delay, there are several reasons. In January I started working for the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) at my local airport and the initial training drained me a lot. After that, it was a case of writer's block I only got over in April. I'm sorry for the delay.**_

**Well, here's the Third Trial, with the entrance of some typical Nerima chaos into Naruto's life and an interesting adventure for the whole gang.**

_Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Ranma ½, Inuyasha, Tenchi Muyo, or any other series referenced or used in this fan fic. If I did, NaruHina would be a reality and I'd be living easy instead of working for the Government._

* * *

It was a Monday when the bad feeling Naruto had been having suddenly intensified. He was in the middle of lunch with his friends when his danger senses suddenly started blaring. Seeing their friend tense, the rest of the group started scanning the area. "What's wrong, Naruto-kun?" asked Hinata.

"Remember that bad feeling I had when we came back through the well? It just got worse," said Naruto. For the rest of the day he was tense, though he was distracted by Keiichi bringing the class to a set of simulators so they could grow used to controlling a car before he took them out for a behind the wheel tests. This was followed by Kenshin giving the group sensor vests from the laser tag arena and having them work on sneaking around the arena to ambush him while he was armed with a laser gun. Needless to say, he tagged pretty much everyone. Naruto and Hinata managed to avoid being tagged with a few close calls, while Ichi and Sakura were only hit a few times compared to the rest of the class. As the bell for the end of class rang, Naruto had forgotten about his bad feeling until he saw Miyuki tense up as the group approached the Saotome home. "What's wrong?" he asked the catgirl.

"I smell the old pervert!" growled Miyuki.

"Ero-Sennin? Has he been peeking on you?" demanded Naruto. Miyuki was now crouching on the ground on all fours and whipping her head around.

"No, this is a different pervert, the one responsible for me being like this!" hissed Miyuki, while Akira and Ranko both assumed guard stances.

Any further questioning was interrupted by the voice of a female Ranma screaming, "Die, you old freak!"

"Dai ryo ja (What a haul)!" yelled another voice.

"Watch out Ranma, he's coming back around!" yelled Akane before she unleashed a battle cry and the sound of a large wooden mallet connecting with flesh was heard followed by the crash of a ceiling giving way to a rapidly moving mass. Said mass turned out to be a shriveled old man with a thin line of hair at his ear line. He was carrying a bulging sack on his back and didn't seem at all harmed by the blunt trauma he had just experienced.

"Wooohooo, those two still got that spunk I love!" said the old man as he twirled a pair of bras in his hand. "And such wonderful silky darlings, I never dreamed Ranma accepting his female side would result in such wonderful delights!!"

Miyuki was pouncing before anyone could say anything and her claws slashed through where the old man had been a second earlier. "Die, Happosai!" she snarled.

"Why Miyuki-chan, you came to greet me after my absence, and in such a cute outfit!" exclaimed the old man as he fondled the cat girl's chest, causing her tail to go rigid, before leaping away from a kick aimed at him by Akira. "You young whippersnappers are too slow to catch me!" he taunted before catching the blade of Ranko's bokken as she brought it down on him. "You've improved, Ranko-chan, but not enough," he said before bounding to the wall above her head. It was then that he noticed the rest of the group, or to be more specific, Hinata, Kimiko, and Ryeka. "Sweeto!" squealed Happosai as he leapt for the new girls. He was greeted by an energy blast from Ryeka as he angled towards her, used the force of the blast to bounce off a light pole toward Kimiko, and got shocked by a barrier she instinctively put up.

"Stay away from us, pervert!" growled the dog girl.

Landing on the ground Happosai observed how Naruto was moving to stand between Hinata and himself and decided if the girl was being protected she had to have some fabulous silky darlings. Leaping towards the blond to use his head as a platform for a dive at Hinata's chest, Happosai was caught off guard by Naruto unsheathing Nenshousaiga in its true form for an upward slash. What made this different from all the other attacks was that Naruto was attacking with intent to kill. Happosai felt the killing intent the boy excluded and was reminded of a person with a similar aura. "Are you related to Kyuubi by chance?" he asked the boy.

"How the hell do you know my mom?" growled Naruto.

"Hah, so that cheeky young vixen who beat the stuffing out of me two hundred and fifty years ago finally got knocked up!" snorted Happosai, only to have to dodge a ball of blue flame followed by Naruto's foot. Happosai leapt above the kick, only to see Naruto's fist shooting towards him. Happosai reacted instantly and whipped out a pipe that he used to catch Naruto and throw the fox boy into the air with a flick of his wrist. "Now where were we before that brat interrupted?" asked Happosai as he leered at Hinata, only to be nearly impaled by a tri-bladed kunai hitting the sidewalk in front of him and driving itself into the concrete up to the bottom of the blades. Naruto suddenly appeared above the kunai, the ground caving in around his feet as he gathered his chakra and youki.

"I won't let you lay a finger on Hinata-chan!" growled Naruto as his youki enveloped him. Behind the old pervert, Ryeka had ignited her energy sword while Kimiko had Imiheijin (Purification Sword Blade) drawn. Miyuki, Akira, and Ranko had recovered by now and joined their friends in circling Happosai.

"Happo Daikarin (Happo Fire Burst)!" yelled Happosai as he unleashed a swarm of round fire crackers at the teens. Ranko, Naruto, Ryeka, and Kimiko slashed the fire crackers to pieces with their blades, Akira punched so fast the wind of his punch blew out the fuse, and Miyuki shredded the firework. However, Happosai had used the opportunity to leap over Naruto and towards Hinata, who had her Byakugan active and was in her Jyuuken stance.

"Shugohakke Rokujūyon Shō _(_Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms)!" yelled Hinata as she unleashed a wave a chakra beams at Happosai, who ducked and weaved through the beams before leaping away from the girl he had previously deemed an easy target.

"You want a real babe to fondle, check this out, Oiroke no jutsu!" yelled Naruto. Happosai, upon hearing the name of the technique, had to see what it did and spun around to see Naruto be engulfed in a cloud of smoke that cleared away to reveal a blond vixen with her intimate bits covered by wisps of smoke.

"Sweeto!" cheered Happosai as he leapt towards Naruto, only to have the blonde's fox tails shoot up and smash into Happy Jr. As Happosai froze in mid air from a blow to his major weak spot, Naruto reverted to his real form and formed a Rasengan in his hand that he used to upper cut Happosai, sending the pervert into LEO (Lower Earth Orbit). After that, Naruto collapsed, tired from using so much chakra earlier in the day during PE and Ninja 101 and then using Shunshin, Hiraishin, and Rasengan so rapidly.

"Is he gone?" groaned Naruto.

"Only for a while, he's been a pain in dad's butt for a long time and bounces back from stuff like this in no time. But you managed to recover from his Happo Throw pretty well," said Ranko as she placed her bokken on the strap meant to hold it on her back. "He used to live with mom's family, but moved out after dad beat him. From what I understand, he's actually quite rich and now that he's no longer the Grandmaster of the school he's bought a private little island where he's got a horde of beautiful girls he's hired to provide him entertainment."

It was at this moment that Ranma and Akane burst around the corner. Akane clutched a giant war hammer in her hands, while Ranma's slitted eyes and energy claws showed she was deep in the Neko-ken. "Where's the old letch?" asked Akane.

"Naruto just sent him into LEO," Akira.

"Who exactly was that?" asked Kimiko.

"Come to the dojo and we'll explain," said Akane as she dismissed her hammer and Ranma slowly came out of the Neko-ken.

* * *

"So that troll was the former Grandmaster of the Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū (School of Indiscriminate Grappling)?" asked Ryeka.

"Yes, the little pervert is around 300 years old and has only lived this long by absorbing Ki from the women he gropes," said Akane.

"I managed to beat him by surprising him with the Neko-ken after he got back from one of his trips abroad and beat him, earning the title of Grandmaster of the Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū, but he still knows more about martial arts than anyone else I know aside from Cologne," said Ranma, currently back in male form.

"Cologne?" asked Kimiko.

"You have ramen made by her great, great granddaughter Li Na every day," said Akira. "She's an ancient Chinese Joketsuzoku tribe matriarch and a grandmaster in their martial arts, she taught dad some of his best moves before grandma gave him his inheritance as a member of the Kamite (God Hand) clan."

"You'll know her when you see her. She's got long silver hair, wears a green robe, is really small, and hops around on her staff like a pogo stick," said Miyuki before her eyes glazed over slightly, "She gives the best back scratches ever!"

"Cats," muttered Kimiko with a smile to show the comment wasn't an insult.

"Anyways, be on your guard from now on, Naruto, once you manage to get the drop on the old Letch he'll try to make your life hell," warned Ranma. "Now, time for training! I want to see fifty spinning back fists followed by 25 triple kicks!"

"Hai!" barked the teens as they quickly got into rows and started the warm up exercises before moving onto serious sparring.

* * *

Everything seemed normal for Naruto the next few days, but it was after a combined attack with Miyuki, Akira, and Ranko that knocked out Shugo for the morning that things started to get weird a week later. Hinako-sensei seemed unusually tense and kept fingering a fifty yen coin in her hand. Keiichi also seemed to think something was up, acting unusually serious. Urd seemed to constantly look over her shoulder every time she caught a glimpse of movement behind her out of the corner of her eye. Inuyasha seemed to be even more alert than normal, when Kimiko let out a shriek because a gust of wind gave her goose bumps; the dog man was by his daughter's side in an instant ready to maul whoever was messing with her, much to Kimiko's embarrassment.

"This has been a weird day," muttered Naruto as the group sat down for lunch together. It was obvious to him that all the students who had even a bit of spiritual awareness, martial arts training, or youkai blood were sensing the vibe going around and were ready for something to happen.

"Yeah, Otou-san has been jumpy, you saw him at PE," said Kimiko as she slurped up some ramen.

"All the teachers are tense," said Ryeka as she looked up from typing on her laptop. "I don't detect anything unusual though…"

"Well, hopefully whatever it is will leave us alone," said Akira, right before everyone froze as a massive battle aura in the shape of Happosai rose up from the soccer field.

"Uzumaki Naruto, come and face me!" roared Happosai.

"You just had to open your big mouth, nii-chan!" growled Miyuki as she smacked Akira on the head. Naruto had already rushed to the top of the school roof via Shunshin and was glaring at the giant apparition of Happosai.

"What do you want, you hentai?" asked Naruto as he glared the apparition in the eye.

"I challenge you, Uzumaki Naruto!" growled the ancient pervert.

"Damn it, can't you wait until after school?" cursed Naruto as he assumed a Battojutsu stance before leaping off the roof towards the giant. Nenshousaiga gleamed as Naruto yelled, "Amatsu Kitsune Ryu Shiden (Heavenly Fox Style: Swordflash)!"and unsheathed the sword so fast nobody was able to track the movement until the blade had stopped moving. Happosai didn't seem hurt by the attack, but his aura wavered for a moment before stabilizing. "Amatsu Kitsune Ryu Kuuchuuhottokattohou (Heavenly Fox Style: Hot Cutting Method)!" barked Naruto as he combined wind and fire chakra around his sword to create a giant blade of foxfire that slashed Happosai's aura from left shoulder to right waist. Instantly, the aura evaporated and Happosai collapsed to the ground as the rest of Naruto's friends skidded to a halt at the edge of the field.

"No way, he beat the old freak so quick?" gasped Akira.

"No way, Happosai won't go down that easy," said Ranko with her eyes narrowed and she was proved right as the old man hopped to his feet.

"I'll admit, that was a powerful attack, especially since it cut off half of my aura," said Happosai as he flexed his arms. "Now I'm going to pull out all the stops!"

"Bring it on, old goat!" barked Naruto as he sheathed Nenshousaiga. Against the agile Happosai, it would be easier to use ninjutsu and taijutsu rather than Kenjutsu that could leave Naruto open to counter attack more easily due to Happosai's small size making him a hard target to hit.

"Happo Daikarin!" yelled Happosai as he hurled a bunch of fireworks at Naruto, who leapt up to avoid the resulting explosions before bringing his foot down where Happosai used to be. Using his foot as a pivot, Naruto spun and slammed his other foot towards Happosai. The kick connected, sending the diminutive pervert into a tree. Happosai easily rebounded off the tree, zooming towards Naruto.

"You like to bounce around, but can you dodge a rain of fire?" asked Naruto as he rapidly formed a few hand seal before yelling, "Naruto Ninpocho: Jouro Kitsune Bi (Naruto's Ninja Art: Raining Fox Fire)!" and sending a single large fireball up above the field from his mouth. Happosai stared at the apparently missed attack in confusion before it split apart and rained foxfire down around the battle area. Not even Happosai could dodge such a wide spread and random attack and his clothing suffered several burns. As Happosai dodged, he suddenly found himself surrounded by fox fire and without any clear paths for escape. Naruto, meanwhile, had been gathering wind chakra around his fist to form a tornado. "Shippuken (Hurricane Fist)!" yelled Naruto as he brought his fist down on Happosai's head, driving the pervert into the ground with gale force winds.

"Now I'm pissed," growled Happosai as he sent a ki blast into Naruto's stomach, sending him backwards and knocking the wind out of his lungs. "Happo Daikarin!" The larger than normal firecracker shot towards the slightly stunned kitsune, only to be slashed in half by Nenshousaiga. However, the firecracker didn't contain gunpowder or other explosives, but water that soaked Naruto.

"All right you old freak I'm gonna…. What the heck?" demanded Naruto upon climbing to his feet and finding his body felt different, plus his kitsune features were visible. Looking down, he was horrified to find his white shirt soaked and straining to contain a pair of impressive breasts. "What did you do to me, old freak?" yelled Naruto.

"That last one was a dud filled with Niángníquán (Spring of drowned girl) water, that's what you'd look like as a girl," said Happosai as he licked his lips in delight at the view Naruto's white shirt give him of her assets. While not quite as mature as his sexy no jutsu form, Naruto's new female form was extremely cute with her fox features and many boys watching the fight had hearts in their eyes. Naruto sported bright orange hair that was a perfect combination of her mother and father's hair colors, though not as bright as Naruto's old jumpsuit. Unlike the Sexy no Jutsu, Naruto's hair simply grew longer instead of being in two pigtails.

Naruto scowled and started forming hand seals. "Kitsune Hijutsu: Omeshi Kawari (Fox secret art: Clothing Alteration)!" she said, causing her soaked uniform to transform into a typical kunoichi outfit complete with appropriate undergarments. "All right pervert, just try to cop a feel of these!"

"Sweeto!" yelled Happosai as he leapt towards Naruto-chan, only to have her seem to vanish just before he could touch her.

"Hmmmm, I'm much faster like this," said Naruto-chan as she used a spin kick to hit Happosai in the back. Naruto-chan then started utilizing Shunshin to play 'smack the old letch' and bounced him around the field until Happosai managed to adapt to the high speed attacks and blocked one.

"You're three hundred years too young to beat me missy!" said Happosai with a smirk as he used one finger to block Naruto-chan's fist.

"I've got a few words for you, Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" yelled Naruto as a group of ten clones formed and charged Happosai. Now, the old pervert was used to dodging the attacks of mobs of girls, but not groups that were perfectly coordinated like the clones were and found himself out-maneuvered with no room or time to use an attack that would take out all his opponents. The result was a bruised and beaten pervert who was then punted into LEO by Naruto-chan. Naruto noticed that all of her jutsu seemed easier to control and perform. She could only guess that her mother's chakra flowed more naturally in a female body since her mother was also female.

"So, even in this fortress of knowledge can be invaded by those who would bring it down," said an arrogant voice that had Naruto groaning.

"Whaddaya want, Shugo-baka?" she asked as the Kuno heir advanced on her.

"Don't deny it kitsune, at last your true form is revealed!" yelled the kendo user as he leveled his bokken at Naruto. "You dare to taint this noble place with your filth?"

"And what right do you have to say Naruto can't be here?" demanded Kimiko as she removed the pendant that concealed her own hanyou features. "Your father might be the principal, but he's the only one who can decide if we can't attend!"

"I'd listen to her, Kuno-san," said Ryeka as a plasma sword sprang to life in her hands.

"Some of us might not like your attitude," added Keishi as he dropped from a tree with catlike grace, now sporting tiger ears, a stripe on each cheek and his forehead.

A boy named Gouiki that Hinata recognized from her medical class, reached up and undid the band holding his orange and black hair down and revealing tiger ears of his own. "We've been here all along, you've never had a problem with Miyuki being part cat due to her curse," he said, his grey eyes fixing on the Kuno heir.

"And some of us come from families just as powerful as yours," said Keimei as she stepped out of the shadows, her thick coat covering her chest but draped down at her back to allow her dragon wings to stretch out for all to see.

Mikihisa Uematsu also stepped forward, a look of determination as the wolf ears now sticking up from his spiky black hair twitched. "You've got a lot of nerve insulting Naruto when you've been harassing him since he came here!" he growled.

"And I won't let you insult my fiancé!" said Hinata as she appeared in front of Shugo with her Byakugan active. One palm strike was all it took to send the Kendoist crashing into the side of the field.

"Binding chains," said a voice as every student was suddenly unable to move due to glowing white chains holding them still. "Well, I'm very glad to see so many students willing to stand up for their fellows," said Gosunkugi as he floated in mid air on a swirling disk of blue light. "However I won't let this school become a battleground between youkai, hanyou, and humans. Any student caught trying to purify, exorcise, or slay another student because they are a youkai or a hanyou will be dealt with severely. Similarly, any youkai or hanyou students that use their abilities to bully or harm human students will be punished by having their powers sealed by Natasha." Here, said woman appeared in a swirl of black energy, only she wasn't clad in her usual mystic robe, instead she was wearing a leather shorts and top combo that showed off her entire body nicely as well as black knee high boots. A tail curled itself around Gosunkugi's waist while a pair of wings kept her in the air next to him. The bell ringing made sure there wouldn't be any more on the topic as Gosunkugi released the spell to let the students make their way to class.

"Well, at least I got rid of the old perv," said Naruto as Hinata quickly checked her over. "Anything wrong with me in this body, Hinata-chan?"

"Well, your chakra coils seem thicker, so your jutsu might be easier to control and perform," said Hinata.

"Great, at least there's an upside to this whole day," said Naruto.

Akira snickered as he said, "Dad's probably going to work you extra hard this afternoon, he'll want to make sure you're used to fighting in that form so if you get splashed in the middle of a fight you won't die or hurt yourself."

Miyuki lightly hugged Naruto as she said, "And he has the same curse as you, he can give you tips to make things more bearable!"

"Thanks, guys, now let's get to class," said Naruto as she leapt up to the second floor where the Magical awareness room was. She was a little surprised when Jason and Zenith waved her over eagerly and complimented her on her fight with Happosai while making sure to treat her the same as normal. Naruto was grateful for that kindness and was soon chatting away. Gosunkugi's lesson that day was on youkai, kitsune, and demons, with Natasha providing demonstrations of demonic magic. No longer stuck in her ordinary form, she sat in mid-air and embarrassed her boyfriend quite a bit.

"Sensei, how come Natasha-san hasn't tried to steal your soul yet?" asked Violet.

"Do you want to tell them or should I?" asked Gosunkugi.

"I'll do it Gos-kun," said Natasha with a smile before plopping herself down on Gosunkugi's lap with a smile and wrapping his arms around her waist. "It all began one day in the netherworld when I was low on power and running from a Shikima lord that wanted to turn me into his main entrée. A portal suddenly opened in front of me and I dove in hoping to escape my pursuer and popped out in Gos-kun's living room. He'd just moved out of his parents' house and gotten a book on demonic summoning that he wanted to try out and done the ritual as a way of christening the apartment. I managed to clear the binding circle he'd carefully etched in stone slabs then filled with salt with my momentum, but the Shikima lord was a fat slob and got zapped by the thing. Gos was actually smart enough to use the emergency spell he'd put in the circle and caused everything within it to implode right off before the Shikima lord could regain his bearings. I was impressed with him and offered to teach him a bit in exchange for saving my life, we got wrapped up in experimenting and research over time, and I woke up one day and found myself wanting to stay with Gos since he respected me and treated me decently." As the succubus finished her story, many of the girls gave dreamy sighs.

"Since we're almost out of time, I want everyone to read the chapter on youkai in your textbook and write a two page paper on your favorite. Any youkai or hanyou has to write about a species besides their own," said Gosunkugi. "Naruto, come out here with me," he said as he stood up and stepped out of the room.

"Yes, sensei?" asked Naruto as she joined the teacher and Natasha outside.

"I'm afraid there is no magic a human is capable of that can cure your new curse, maybe a youkai would know a way, but only ask one you trust explicitly," said the teacher.

"I've already got someone in mind, but I have to maintain silence with back home for the next two and a half years, so I'll just have to wait until I get back home to talk to her," said Naruto with a shrug.

"You're taking this whole thing awfully well," remarked Natasha.

"Well, I'm part kitsune, turning into beautiful women is nothing new to me, I even invented a trick that would make me look like this at a more mature age to disable perverts and it works really well, so I've spent enough time in a girl's body that I'm not hopeless," said Naruto with a shrug.

With that, the bell rang and Naruto ran back into the room to grab her book bag before rushing to Driver's Ed.

* * *

True to Akira's words, Ranma did make Naruto do extra training and had everyone help by using water guns filled with an appropriate water temperature to strike Naruto in the middle of a kata to get the kitsune hanyou used to the change in body while in motion. Naruto's experimenting with Sexy no Jutsu helped a lot and Ranma was satisfied by Naruto's progress by the end of the day. One thing was discovered, any clones Naruto made would stay in the form he was in when he made them, though the original could still have the curse triggered. This led to a picture being taken showing both versions of Naruto grinning with an arm on the other's shoulder as they each gave the camera thumbs up.

* * *

Upon seeing Naruto's curse, Jiraiya broke out laughing and it was only because of Hoshiko pulling Naruto into Hinata's room that the blonde kept herself from sending Jiraiya to the hospital. The kitsune maid had a tape measure in her hands and handed Hinata a pad of paper. "Hmm, let's see what your sizes are Naruto-chan, we're going to need to fit you for proper clothing, a kunoichi outfit won't do if you're trying to blend in. Now off with the kunoichi outfit so I can measure you!" exclaimed Hoshiko.

"Okay, just get this over with!" muttered Naruto as she removed her outfit and had to endure the embarrassing situation of being measured in front of her girlfriend in the nude while Hinata wrote down Naruto's measurements. The Hyuuga girl blushed when she found out Naruto was a generous C cup and would probably be a DD if his girl form aged along with his male form. Hoshiko handed Naruto a pair of boxers and baggy pants for the moment as she looked over the measurements that Hinata wrote down.

"All right, I'll have clothing ready for you tomorrow, but first of all, I need Hinata to activate her Byakugan," said Hoshiko. After the heiress did as instructed, the kitsune woman said, "Now, Naruto, I'm going to splash you with warm water and Hinata will tell me if there is any chakra released in the transformation." When Hinata confirmed that there was chakra released, Hoshiko smiled and placed a chakra card like the one used to test a person's elemental affinity above Naruto's heart before splashing him with cold water. Another splash of warm water, a quick towel off, and a new card later Naruto was male and Hoshiko had two cards in her hands, one labeled "to male", and the other "to female".

"Ok, what was all that for?" asked Naruto.

"I'm going to work seals into your uniforms so that the moment your chakra changes it will cause your clothing to transform into the proper outfit. I'll even do this with kimono or other outfits you might need in the future so you'll always have the proper clothing for your gender," explained Hoshiko. "These chakra cards give me the aura released by the transformation for either form, so that's all I will need.

"That is handy," said Naruto with a grin. He was glad to be back in guy form after spending all day getting used to his female form. While Naruto, Hinata, and Jiraiya went to bed, Hoshiko spent the night working on Naruto's uniform.

* * *

Before going to bed, Jiraiya let himself into Naruto's room with an unusually serious face. "Naruto, I have to warn you, Happosai is very powerful. I trained under him for a short time, but he's perverted to a point I'm never going to pass. I draw the line at my research. Happosai loves to fondle women and steal their undergarments. I'll try to put a damper on any of his panty raids while he's here, but do your best to take him out quickly if he comes after you again," said the Sennin. Naruto simply nodded, he knew Jiraiya hated men who molested women and would beat up any guy he caught doing so if the woman didn't extract vengeance on her own. Naruto's respect for Jiraiya rose a bit, but then took a nosedive as the super pervert whipped out his note book and asked, "Would you mind doing a few poses?"

"Good night Ero-Sennin!" barked Naruto as he shut the door in Jiraiya's face after shoving the man out of his room.

* * *

The next morning, Naruto watched with interest as Hoshiko splashed him with cold water and the pants he normally wore to school became a skirt like the one Hinata wore while his boxers became panties, though very simple and unfrilly ones. Hoshiko handed him a light wife beater that would turn into a bra because according to her he really didn't want to have to deal with back aches if it was raining and he'd be a girl most of the day.

Naruto felt a little nervous walking into school with his ears and tails visible, but the sight of Keimei chatting with a normal human friend and neither showing any signs of nerves eased his mind. Things went fine for Naruto until gym, that's when one of the dumber jocks decided to splash Naruto after he removed his shirts to get a free show. Said idiot was found pinned to the wall by kunai and shuriken with the imprint of Naruto-chan's fist beside his head. After that, thoughts of splashing Naruto were quickly squashed.

* * *

As they walked home that afternoon for practice at the Tendo dojo, the group was treated to the sight of Ryeka practically bouncing as she walked. "What's up with you today?" asked Miyuki.

"We've finally finished upgrading the laser for the computer lab, we can now digitize anything we want, even people! Sensei even tested it on Ren-oh-ki and me, it worked perfectly!" exclaimed Ryeka while said Cabbit poked her head out of the cyan haired girl's backpack with a happy "Miyah!"

"Cool, any chance we could try it out?" asked Naruto.

"Soon, but first everyone in the class has to program a game to be played in a virtual reality festival. Hinata's was ninja practice, simply hitting targets with shuriken for simple prizes. I'm very impressed, she even added random gusts of wind that would force the shuriken off target with a little help from me," said Ryeka.

"You programmed all that, Hinata-chan?" asked Naruto in glee before hugging his girlfriend, only to be hit by water from a little old lady cleaning the sidewalk in front of her house. Hinata blushed as Naruto-chan nuzzled her before ringing her hair out. "Stupid water magnet, I don't mind the change so much as being soaked afterwards," groaned Naruto with a pout on her lips that caused a passing delivery boy to crash headlong into a light pole.

"Naruto, that body should be registered as a lethal weapon," said Akira as he stared at the stunned delivery boy.

"It's my inherent Kitsune sexiness, I can't help it!" protested Naruto with a grin, which earned her a light bap on the shoulder from Hinata and laughs from the rest of the group.

* * *

That evening, Ryeka grinned as she finished writing the last line of code for her game. "This is going to be so much fun," she said as she saved the program on a CD before removing it and placing the CD in a carrying case in her book bag and glancing at where Ren-oh-ki was munching on her bedtime carrot. A sudden pop up appeared before the cyan haired girl could shut down her laptop for the evening. "Crud, my Intergalactic Virus Guard expired, I need to get the new version Grandma got me," she said as she got up to visit Washu's lab with Ren-oh-ki perched on her shoulder. As Ryeka shut the door to her room, a small green blob appeared on the monitor before moving to the icon for her hard drive. By the time Ryeka returned, her computer was back to normal and she installed the new virus protection before shutting the computer off and going to bed.

* * *

"All right everyone, today is the day we start building our virtual festival!" said Skuld as she gestured to the image of a traditional festival projected on the screen behind her. Only one stand had any visible detail on it, a generic black ninja head over a grey shuriken marking Hinata's shuriken practice game. The other stalls bore the names of students and a few digitized props, but not much. A banner above the stalls bore the slogan VIRTUFEST: The fun of a festival without leaving your home or worrying about the weather! "Who's first?" asked Skuld, causing Kasumi's hand to shoot up.

"I've got my Magical Fighter," said Kasumi as she pulled out a CD. "It allows the participant to become a magical knight or girl, choose an elemental property and attack, then fight through a small dungeon ending with a boss fight. A fairy accompanies them and serves as a help menu if they're stuck as well as an exit option if they can't beat a puzzle or enemy blocking the way due to poor character set up!"

"Sounds good, put it in!" said Skuld as she opened the CD drive for the computer compiling the games into the virtual world. As Kasumi and several other students got in line to add their programs to the festival, Ryeka brought out her laptop to check her e-mail since the computer lab mainframe was under enough pressure with everyone working on their programs that weren't ready yet.

"Let's see if that virus protection is working properly," said Ryeka as she turned on the laptop's internet connection. Unlike the wireless adapter it appeared to use, Ryeka's laptop got its super fast internet connection via a small receiver that allowed her to use Washu's intergalactic connection anywhere on earth. As the system started to connect, Ryeka noticed that Kokufuu Nekura was missing. The broody boy was one of the few in the class on par with her in the field of computers and she was surprised he wasn't there to show off his latest creation. "I guess he's in the bathroom," muttered Ryeka, glad she wouldn't have to endure his smug attitude right now. It was pretty well known in school that she was a Star Wars Otaku and she just knew Nekura would mock her X-wing simulator because of that.

All of a sudden, a large green blob appeared on Ryeka's screen. She stared in surprise as the blob suddenly grew a smirking face before a tendril touched the icon for the local network and a portal appeared behind the blob as it disappeared. "Ryeka, is something wrong?" asked Hinata as she saw her friend with her mouth wide open.

"I don't know," muttered Ryeka as her fingers flew over her computer keyboard, trying to figure out what happened. However, her question was answered as a portal opened up in the festival image, now sporting several more completed booths and attractions, and the same green blob appeared for all to see before morphing into a humanoid lizard.

"What is this?" demanded Skuld, scowling at the lizard man. "Nobody said anything about creating creatures for this!"

"Oh, I'm not some little program one of you filthy apes created," said the Lizard man, shocking everyone. "I'm Caegot, a member of the Yugtai, a race that can convert ourselves to living computer data. I was passing by this planet and found an intergalactic transmission link that had just had its antivirus security expire, so I was able to sneak down the link and infect the computer on the other end. Now I'm going to start taking over this school and there's nothing any of you can do about it."

"Oh yeah, you've got no idea what you're dealing with!" said Skuld as she started typing rapidly on the keyboard for the festival server, causing a giant weight to crash down on Caegot, only to have him become the blob again and flow out from under the attack.

"You can't hurt me, I'm the master of the computer; I've taken over," said the lizard man before an evil grin appeared on his face. "And you've given me a lovely toy!" The digitizing laser suddenly spun around on its swivel mount to face Skuld and zapped her before she could react, digitizing her. As Skuld appeared in the festival grounds, Caegot raised his hand and lighting zapped Skuld, causing her to scream before falling to the ground passed out. "Who's next?" asked the lizard man as the digitizing laser spun around and started zapping students one by one.

Ryeka managed to duck beneath her desk, grabbing her CD as she did so and stuffing it in her book bag where Ren-oh-ki quivered. "Stay in there no matter what, tell mom and Grandma what's happened and get grandma working on an anti-virus program," said Ryeka as she kept the cabbit from bolting. "Any ideas?" she asked Hinata, who was using her Byakugan to keep track of everything.

"If we stay down like this, he shouldn't be able to target us," said Hinata before the door that led to the robotics club room next door was pushed open. A waist high green orb with R2-D2 like legs trundled into the room followed by several smaller robots what looked like a game console controller with propellers that allowed them to fly. (Links to pictures will be in the forum)

"Great, he managed to hack the robotics club's robots via wireless interface!" groaned Ryeka as small lasers were sent towards them by the flying robots, which spread out to guard the door and allowed the green robot to menace them with the laser gun mounted on its upper right side.

"That gun doesn't work, does it?" asked Hinata, only to have a red laser bolt shoot by her head. "Guess it does," muttered the Hyuuga heiress as she pulled a few shuriken and kunai from her backpack. "I'll try to take out greenie, you handle the flying pests!" By now, the two of them were the only ones in the class left due to being in the back row and the laser having to digitize all the desks in the way. Luckily, the room had a door in the front and back of the room due to its size and layout requiring the second door for safety reasons. Hinata leapt up, the shuriken flying from her hands to slam into the joints of the green robot, halting its movement but still leaving it a threat as the gun appeared to still work. Ryeka meanwhile fired plasma balls at the flying robots, bringing them down before she was forced to duck the digitizing laser. As both girls made a break for the door, Hinata flung her kunai at the laser, only to see them digitized before they could hit the machine. Both girls used the brief recharge period of the laser to run for the door, only for another flying robot to swoop in and shoot their legs. Ryeka had just enough time to see a surprised Nekura looking in the door and mouthed RUN to him before the digitizing laser hit her and everything went weird. As she materialized in the virtual festival, Ryeka found herself facing a dark green Imperial Stormtrooper aiming a blaster rifle at her.

"I found these lovely Jedi Knight games on your computer, I decided to adapt these programs for my own use as my Cybertroopers," said Caegot as he smirked at her. Ryeka could see the rest of the class being held prisoner, though some like Kasumi and the athletic Gami Teisei seemed to have their wits about them and were observing everything. "Now, where is your little friend?" he asked and Ryeka realized Hinata wasn't captured. A rain of kunai forced the lizard man back to his blob form and Ryeka caught a glimpse of Hinata sprinting away from her game booth, where she had restocked on virtual kunai and shuriken.

Seizing the slight distraction of the Cybertroopers, several students made their moves. Ryeka's hair whipped forward and fired a bunch of hair at her captor like they were senbon, sending her captor staggering and allowing her to fire a plasma blast that turned him into green data chunks that disappeared. Gami's hands shot up, grabbed her captor by their arm, and flipped him over her shoulder to slam into the ground. Miyuri Mitsuzuki, a tall girl with dark hair who liked to try to tease Hinata with ghost stories, swept the feet out from under her captor and kicked his gun away while lightning started to spark at her fingers before forming energy claws that shredded the Cybertrooper into data. Lean McHausen, a transfer student from England, showed surprising strength as she pulled off a suplex on her guard that left him buried in the ground before he dissolved into data. Kasumi suddenly threw herself into a back flip, her foot snapping out to strike her captor with a cry of "_Hien Zan!_" as she rose into the air before delivering a power packed axe kick with a cry of "_Tenshou Kyaku_!" before flipping forward for a final kick with a cry of, "_Hangetsu Zan!"_ that destroyed the Cybertrooper and left Kasumi doing the splits as she raised her hand and yelled, "LIGHT ILLUMINA ACTIVATION!" and was engulfed in a bright white light. The light faded to reveal Kasumi in a silver sailor top, shorts, and boots. A silver headband with a star on each side held her hair back. "Starburst Beam!" yelled Kasumi as she fired a burst of rainbow light at a Cybertrooper raising his blaster rifle.

As the newly revealed magical girl and three martial artists tore into the Cybertroopers, Ryeka raised her hands and a giant force field appeared around the group made of many small floating logs. Hinata, however, was outside the force field.

"Hinata, get out of here, you're our best bet for springing everyone with your stealth skills!" yelled Ryeka, "Get to the festival entrance, that should allow you access to the computer where he can't catch you! Hide and try to find an I/O source and get a message to someone!" Hinata nodded and with a last glance at her fighting comrades, ran for the entrance of the festival where a glowing blue gateway under a Tori arch marked the edge of the program.

Caegot snarled and smacked Ryeka into a stall featuring a kendo training simulator, causing the barrier to drop. "Get her!" he yelled to his Cybertroopers, only to have Ryeka fly out of the booth clutching a bokken with another strapped to her back. She landed in a group of Cybertroopers and spun around.

"Kaiten Giri!" yelled Ryeka as her sword sliced all the Stormtroopers in half. "We're not letting you guys get Hinata!" growled Ryeka as she assumed a guard stance. Behind her, Lean, Gami, and Miyuri were blocking the Cybertrooper's advances thanks to Kasumi supporting them with long range blasts.

"Then we're doing this the hard way," said Caegot as a green ball of energy formed in his hands before he tossed it at the people denying him. The ball exploded, causing all four girls to scream as green energy shot through them like lightning before they collapsed to the ground. "Now it's just you and me!" said Caegot as he loomed over Ryeka.

* * *

As Hinata passed through the portal, she felt a tingle of energy wash over her. Looking down at herself, she was surprised to see her school uniform had gained glowing lines the same color as her hair along the pleats of the skirt and the lines of the shirt as well as a strange glowing blue Frisbee that seemed to have attached itself to her left arm. Quickly looking around her surroundings, she was surprised to see what looked like a digital representation of the school with people who sported clothes with lines similar to hers walking around, though each person seemed to be a different color. A hand suddenly grabbed Hinata and pulled her into a door that suddenly opened beside the portal. Finding herself in a featureless room with an unknown captor, Hinata started to struggle until she heard Skuld's voice hiss, "Quiet Hinata! They'll hear you!" and freezing as the clump of heavily booted feet was heard outside the room, which suddenly lacked a door.

"No sign of her here. Search the whole building!" said a voice outside.

"Sir, yes sir!" barked a bunch of identical voices before the sound of a group of people marching away caused Skuld to sigh in relief.

"Phew, we got lucky those programs are just from a game and not advanced AI," said Skuld as she released Hinata.

"Sensei, what's going on?" asked Hinata as she turned to find her sensei clad in the armor of a Valkyrie wielding a massive war hammer. Both the armor and the hammer were covered in glowing silver lines while a pair of white wings spread from Skuld's back.

"First of all, I'm not your sensei; I'm a debugging program she wrote for the school named Sigrdrífa. Since my main processor is in the computer lab I know everything that happened. Luckily, my user gave me an advanced AI so I can help you rescue her. We're going to have to fight our way to the school's I/O center so we can get a message to my user's sisters," said the Valkyrie.

"I think Ryeka-chan's grandmother would be a big help, she claims to be the greatest scientific genius in the universe," suggested Hinata.

"Good, the more people we can get to help the better," said Sigrdrífa. "Now, tell me all of your combat capabilities and skills, I need to know our capabilities so I can plan our course of action." Hinata nodded and started listing off her talents of a shinobi.

* * *

Naruto was just returning the Magical Awareness classroom from the bathroom when Nekura dashed around the corner of the building with a swarm of flying robots pursuing him. Naruto had seen the robots during the club day a few weeks ago when all the school clubs tried to recruit new members but he didn't remember them being able to shoot lasers. Naruto leapt to the nearby wall and then the ceiling, charging the robots with Nenshousaiga and slashing them each in half in the blink of the eye. Nekura saw all this, his eyes wide at how fast Naruto moved. "Did someone set those robots on you as a joke?" asked Naruto, since the two boys had never gotten along the few times they interacted in homeroom. Nekura sat behind Kasumi in the back row and was very arrogant and mean spirited. When he had dropped his pencil and it rolled to Hinata's feet, she had passed it back with a smile. Nekura had scowled at her like she did a terrible crime. Another time Naruto had been heading to the bathroom just as Nekura had entered ahead of him. The orange haired boy had slammed the bathroom door in Naruto's face, sparking the kitsune's dislike of him full force. Nekura also had a habit of hacking into his fellow classmate's work and leaving comments on the program that insulted the capability of the programmer. All in all, he was not well liked by the rest of the class.

"No, some crazy green guy who's apparently a cyber terrorist from space attacked the lab. He entered the computer and started digitizing everyone; I only escaped because I was in the bathroom and about to come back in when it digitized Sensei. Everyone else in the class was digitized in front of my eyes," said Nekura, only to have Naruto grab his collar and slam him against the wall. Nekura struggled, but stilled when Naruto's pupils became blue slits as his tails thrashed angrily

"Tell me how to get them back!" growled Naruto. However, before Nekura could say anything, a sound caught their attention. The sound of several metal points hitting the ground rapidly reached their ears. Both boys could only stare as a spider-legged robot rounded the corner, two larger curved spikes raised above its body for striking attacks.

"The robotics club never made anything like that!" exclaimed Nekura.

"Of course not, you filthy apes," said Caegot's voice as the robot's glowing green eyes fixed on them. By now, several students were looking out of their rooms in curiosity and listening to it. "I'm able to bring characters from games to the real world with the laser; this fine machine is from one of the Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic games I found on Ryeka's laptop. I can easily create an army to help me rule this world! Anyone who stands in the way of my plans will be terminated!" With that, the robot leapt towards the two boys, causing Nekura and the other students watching to scream in horror as the striking blades glinted.

A figure suddenly appeared in front of the two boys and yelled, "Silence Wall!" causing a dome of dark energy to spring up and block the robot's attack. Everyone stared in surprise as a woman clad in what looked like a figure skater's outfit with a purple skirt and maroon bows on her waist and chest. The purple boots with lacing up the front were planted in a firm stance as she held an ornate glaive vertically in front of her. "I will not allow you to harm any of the students under my care! Schools are where our youth prepare for their future…oh forget it. In the name of Saturn, I'm Sailor Saturn and I'm here to kick your metallic butt!" she said. "The intro speech only works if you say it before jumping into the fight," she muttered.

"If you think you can stand in my way, you're a fool," said Caegot through the robot as a swarm of the flying robots flew around the corner and prepared to attack Saturn. However, they all fell to the ground as a kunai barrage skewered them.

"I thought we were going to stay back and let the kids handle things?" asked a red ninja as he appeared beside Saturn. Even though a red dragon helmet covered his face, Naruto knew right away it was Kenshin by his stance and sword. Naruto figured that Saturn was Hotaru, since there was no way Hotaru would let her boyfriend near a woman in such a skimpy outfit.

"Crimson Dragon, are you saying I should have let that thing impale these two?" asked Saturn.

"No, I can tell the fox boy would have sliced that thing in half," said the ninja as he gestured to where Naruto almost had Nenshousaiga drawn in a Battojutsu move.

"Ummm, this is all real nice and all, but what about them?" screamed Nekura as he pointed towards the computer room, where more of the spider bots were appearing, including a version with a laser gun on the head.

"Umm, tactical retreat time," said Saturn before she yanked down on a nearby fire alarm. The resulting sprinklers did nothing to stop the robots, but the goal was to evacuate the school. The Senshi, two shinobi, and the student then fled, using the massive rush of students and teachers evacuating the school to make their escape, though Nekura was dragged along by Naruto.

* * *

"Remember what to do if any of those greenies attack us?" asked Sigrdrífa as she prepared to lead Hinata out into the computer network.

"Throw this disk at them to decapitate, the disk can also be used to block other attacks," replied Hinata. "My shuriken and kunai aren't unlimited, plus I won't be able to summon any phoenixes to aid me. These subroutines you gave me offer some protection, plus makes it harder to detect me if we get separated," she continued as she gestured to the glowing armor she now wore over her uniform.

"Good, just don't attack any normal looking people since they're innocent programs," said Sigrdrífa before opening the door to the school computer system. As the two slipped out of their hiding place, Hinata took a better look around her. The entire school building appeared to be lined with neon lights, as did the rest of the city she could see beyond the school that represented the presence of personal and business computer in Nerima. The two made their way to the roof of the school without being spotted, where a bright blue beam extended to the air from a small bunker like structure. "This is an I/O port," said Sigrdrífa. "From here we can contact anyone. Since I also manage the school's firewall, I know that the fire alarm has been pulled here, even though I stopped the alarm from reaching the outside world the students and teachers will evacuate. So we'll try to contact Ryeka's grandmother first." Hinata nodded and the two slipped into the bunker, where Sigrdrífa started working on a console while Hinata stood guard.

* * *

Washu grinned as she turned on her computer. She'd spent the morning working on a project and planned to surf the Internet for a bit to relax before resuming her work. She was surprised when a notice popped up saying somebody wanted to chat with her. She was surprised when what looked like a Valkyrie appeared in the chat box. "Are you Habuki Washu?" asked the woman.

"Yes, who is this?" asked the red head as she reached over to her side to activate a scanner that would trace the location of her contact. This allowed Washu to send nasty viruses to anyone who chatted with her and sent her a trick; it also helped her zero in on the location of anyone contacting her electronically on Earth.

"My name is Sigrdrífa, I have important news about your granddaughter Masaki Ryeka," said the Valkyrie.

"Oh, and why should I believe you?" asked Skuld.

Sigrdrífa stepped aside to reveal Hinata, who Washu recognized easily. She had taken a liking to the polite young woman and often helped Ayeka coach Hinata on politics by looking up interesting species with strange laws and having Hinata try to negotiate with a simulated diplomat from that species. She had also taught Hinata a bit about medicine, mainly the more microscopic parts of the human body beyond the cellular level. "Washu-sensei, something bad happened, a Yugtai criminal called Caegot managed to infect Ryeka-chan's computer and now our school system!"

"Yugtai eh?" asked Washu. "And why do you look so different Hinata?"

"I've been digitized and I'm inside the computer. Ryeka and the rest of our class have also been digitized and are trapped in the computer. Everything Sigrdrífa said is true and we need help!"

"Okay, I'll send some help for you, I have something that should be able to undigitize everyone if the laser is damaged, but it will take some time to set up," said Washu.

"Yay Washu! You are a genius!" exclaimed the little Washu doll with an A on it that appeared on her right shoulder.

"You can do it!" cheered another doll with a B on it perched on Washu's left shoulder.

"Thank you, Washu-sensei, just tell whomever you're sending to look for Naruto-kun, something tells me he's already aware of what happened since one of our classmates escaped," said Hinata.

"Right, now hide before Caegot manages to find you Hinata," said Washu before closing the connection. "Computer, locate project X34-B78-beta and have it prepared for loading onto Ryo-oh-ki," she said.

"Affirmative, Washu," said a digital voice.

Washu then ran out of her lab, pulling out her cell phone as she did so. After a quick call to Ranma and Akane to inform them of the situation and explaining things to Tenchi, Ryoko, and Ayeka, Washu was upstairs in Ryeka's room and entering the girl's personal laboratory. "T3, where are you?" she asked, since the room was filled with robots Ryeka had created based on various droids from the Star Wars universe. Her current project was a upgrading her R2-D2 droid with new options. Said R2 unit's head swiveled to focus on Washu and it let out a series of beeps and whistles. "Thanks Artoo, I'll go get him now. I'd ask for your help, but with all the stuff I see missing from you right now you wouldn't do much good to Ryeka at this time," said Washu as she patted the little droid on the head. Walking farther into the back of the lab, Washu smiled as she found the droid she was looking for. With a disk shaped head, a rectangular body, long blocky front legs, and short trapezoid back legs, the little droid looked very simple, almost like a child had designed him. But he was one of Ryeka's greatest successes, able to use several weapons and a great hacker, which was why Washu needed him. Currently the droid was powered down, which explained why he hadn't responded to Washu's call earlier. Tapping the droid on his head, Washu smiled as T3-M4 swiveled his single large blue photoreceptor to focus on her. "T3, we've got a situation that requires your hacking skills. I'll need to download some software into you first, then you're going to save my granddaughter!"

T3 let out a series of beeps and whistles before rolling over to a section of the wall and extending his computer interface arm to the socket built for it. The wall panel swiveled around to reveal various droid weapons. The little droid swiveled his head around to chatter at Washu, causing her to grin.

"Of course I'll install some weapons for this, Ryeka would be furious with me if I didn't. And I don't care about how authentic she wants you to be, I'm installing a speech processor so everyone can understand you," said Washu with a grin as she looked over the weapons available for the little droid.

"Just you wait!" cheered puppet A as it gripped a screwdriver almost as big as it was.

"You'll be better than ever!" yelled B as it struggled to hold a wrench.

* * *

"I'm really beginning to hate these things," growled Naruto as he used Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu to defeat another swarm of the flying robots. "How many of these did the robotics club make?"

"I'm guessing Caegot digitized one and used copy and paste to make as many as he needs, plus the big robots are from games so he can create as many as he the situation requires," said Crimson Dragon as he slashed another flying bot in half.

"Nekura, any luck in finding the rest of your class or Hinata in the computer?" asked Saturn as she protected the boy with her Silence Wall.

"No, I have to be very careful that my search program doesn't bring Caegot right to Hinata!" growled Nekura. He had wanted to run off but Naruto had dragged him along, saying that as the only computer expert in the group they needed his help. With the creative use of Henge, Naruto had become one of the spider droids and managed to sneak Nekura's bag out of the lab to him as well as find out Hinata had escaped into the school network. The rest of the group was surprised to find that inside the bag was a customized laptop, flexible keyboard, satellite modem, and other things that would make a hacker drool (Think of the bag of gear Matthew Farrell carries in Live Free or Die Hard and uses to hack stuff) "Plus, I have to search the whole school's system for your girlfriend and my seeker program can't move to quickly with all the Greenies that jerk released to track her down."

"What about finding a way to disable however these robots are being produced?" asked Saturn as she slashed another in half with her glaive.

"That was easy; he's uploaded a bunch of files to a remote hard drive and is duplicating the programs rapidly with some of his personal program data mixed in to allow a hive mentality. Think of it as him acting as the central mind of a colony of robots," said Nekura. He had managed to sneak an observation program into the festival using a disguise as a plushy prize to observe Caegot. The cyber villain was furious that his Cybertroopers had failed to capture Hinata. "If you destroy the digitizing laser he can't produce any more robots, but to do that you'd have to get to it. Plus, destroying it would trap everyone he's zapped in the computer!"

"What's keeping Caegot from infecting your computer?" asked Naruto as the group managed to take shelter in the science lab.

"He seems to be limited to the network that can support him, he has to have a physical connection to my computer to enter it, and since I'm only using my laptop's wireless interface, he can't get onto it," muttered Nekura.

"I hope the rest of the students are okay," said Saturn as she healed a laser burn Naruto had gotten from a swarm of hover bots.

* * *

Outside the school building, many things were going on. Kuno had organized the teachers and they were making sure none of the robots made it outside. Keiichi was currently working with a few of the robotics club members to figure out some way to deactivate the hover bots that were guarding the school and zapping anyone who tried to sneak in. Hotaru's medical students were tending to anyone who had gotten zapped during their escape from the school with the help of Keiichi's wife Belldandy, who taught home economics and the music class, while members of Kenshin's shinobi class were spread around the school to observe the robots. Gosunkugi and Natasha were using a force field spell to keep the robots inside the school. Urd was sitting to the side of everything, trying to hack the school's mainframe with her PDA. Her eyes widened as she got an e-mail and read it. "Kuno-sensei, I've got some info," she said as she approached Kuno, who was discussing ideas for taking back control of the school with his loyal ninja Sasuke.

The kendo master seemed to lose some of his tension at this and turned to Urd with relieved eyes. "I'm glad you do, besides what students overheard during Uzumaki's confrontation of the robots we know nothing," he said.

Urd tapped the screen of her PDA with the stylus and started to explain everything that had happened. "So, to sum it up, we've got an intergalactic cyber terrorist using enemies from computer games and robots our students invented against us," said Urd.

"Something just occurred to me, didn't the robotics club make a simple tank type robot that could have various upper bodies mounted on it for contests?" asked Tatewaki suddenly as Keiichi walked over to join the other teachers.

"Yeah, but it's pretty much useless in combat unless you put a weapon on… it…" said Keiichi as his mind suddenly put two and two together and didn't like the result. "I helped Skuld set up that digitizing laser, all the hardware for it could fit on the tank bot and give him a mobile gunnery platform!" gasped Keiichi.

"Looks like we got here just in time," said a new voice, causing everyone to look at the three people and one robot that just walked up. The speaker was a tall red head whose hair resembled a crab. She was dressed in casual clothes with a lab coat covering them. Behind her were a worried looking Tenchi, Ryoko, and Ayeka.

"And who are you madam? I recognize Tenchi-kun from the kendo circuits and his two loves, but I have not met you before," stated Kuno.

"I'm Habuki Washu, grandmother to Ryeka. I received word that my granddaughter and most of her class was hit with a digitizing laser and I think I can be a big help," said Washu before turning to her daughter, daughter in law, and son in law. "Ayeka, help those two with your own force field, Ryoko, start checking out the school, Tenchi, get ready to attack any robots that come out of there." When everyone stared at her in surprise, Washu scowled and said, "If you want to get those kids out of there, I suggest you follow my instructions NOW!" ending in a yell that had everyone scurrying to obey her. "Is there anyone left in the school?" she asked while her holographic laptop appeared in front of her.

"Two of my teachers and two students are unaccounted for, but we know they aren't digitized at the moment," said Tatewaki.

Washu raised an eyebrow as she asked, "And how do you know that?"

* * *

"Get out of my way!" yelled Naruto as he kicked a stabbing spider bot out of a third story window.

* * *

The crash of a giant robot going through a window and falling to the ground halted any conversation. "I think that answers your question?" asked Tatewaki calmly.

"Father, when are we going to make a counterattack?" demanded Shugo as he strode forward.

"Yeah, we need to get rid of these things!" added Inuyasha as he clutched Tessaiga tightly.

"First let me send this guy in to contact the group still inside," said Washu as she gestured to the little droid beside her, who beeped as if to say it was ready to go.

* * *

"Nekura, any luck yet?" demanded Crimson Dragon as he barely managed to use his katana blade to deflect a laser strike from one of the spider bots.

"No, if I had a physical connection this would be much faster, but if I did that he'd be able to hack my system!" barked the boy, wincing as a laser from a hover bot shot by his head.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" yelled Naruto just before a horde of clones charged the robots. "This is getting us nowhere!"

It was at this moment that a metallic ball suddenly landed in the middle of the attacking robot group. A little light blinked on the sphere for a moment before it exploded, unleashing a wave of energy that shorted out all the robots. "What the heck was that?" demanded Saturn.

With a triumphant whistle, a small droid rolled around the corner and rapidly weaved through the downed robots to skid to a halt in front of the group. Raising its head, the giant lens on the front of its head glowed blue before an image of Washu, Kuno, Tenchi, Inuyasha, and the other adults outside appeared. "Naruto, can you hear me?" asked Washu.

"Yes, Washu-san, am I glad to see you!" gasped Naruto as he slumped to the ground.

"Good, I'll make this short and quick. This little guy is a utility droid named T3-M4. I've just upgraded his firewall and he'll be able to hack into the school for you and destroy Caegot's control over the digitizing laser as well as keep me posted on the situation inside the school. Once that's done, we'll make our next move. So guard this droid!"

"Hai, Washu-san!" said Naruto before the image disappeared. "Alright, Nekura, where should we get this little guy so he can plug into the network?"

"All I need is an unoccupied cable port!" chirped T3-M4, causing everyone to blink. "Yes, I can speak, Washu-sama upgraded me with that today to make sure I could interface with you properly.

"There's a routing closet on each floor, he can get into the network there," said Nekura as he quickly led the group to what looked like a janitor's closet. Opening the door, Nekura revealed a small room with barely any room for a single person in the middle of the stacks of routers and switches lining the walls. T3-M4 rolled forward and extended a probe arm to a port on a router.

"Commencing hack," said the droid. "Uploading Probe.exe."

* * *

Inside the network, an avatar of T3-M4 materialized in the top floor of the building. Looking just like his normal self, the avatar simply had the same neon blue glow many programs did and blended in quite well. The sound of booted feet running towards him had Probe ducking into a darkened corner and he watched Cyber Troopers run by. "They're holed up in the science lab subnet, all units report," yelled one of the troopers. Curious, Probe silently followed the group and was pleased they had led him to one of his first targets. Sigrdrífa and Hinata were indeed hiding inside the part of the network representing the science lab. Sigrdrífa was armed with a very powerful looking rifle while Hinata clutched her disk weapon and had already proved very accurate with it thanks to some lessons Sasuke had given her with fuuma and windmill shuriken. Seeing that the two needed his help, Probe brought out his Rod Primitive subroutine. Resembling a glowing blue tube, this was the equivalent of a stun baton in a first person shooter. None of the Cybertroopers noticed him until Probe made his move, jabbing the rod into the back of their commander. As the troopers swiveled to fire above Probe, he switched to his blaster.

"Hyuuga Hinata? I'm here to help you!" he said as the troopers dissolved into data.

* * *

"Hinata is in the science lab's server!" said T3-M4, causing the rest of the group to smile in relief. "I'm disengaging here and we'll go meet up with her!" A quick dash and encounter with some spider bots later, the group was once again in the science room with T3-M4 plugging himself into the computer meant for the teacher's use. As the only one on right now, it was the only place Hinata could be. The other computers in the room were used for monitoring certain experiments done in class and all were turned off. T3-M4 hummed slightly as he made his connection before a small slot on his head slid aside to reveal a jack. "Please connect your laptop here, I don't feel safe transferring a person through wireless media," said the droid, causing Nekura to do so. "Do you have a program that allows you to video chat with a bot?" asked the droid. Seeing Nekura's nod, he said, "I will act as a security system while Hinata is transferred to your computer, at that point open your program and select the Hinata bot to allow her to talk to us. I scanned your equipment earlier; your microphone will allow everyone to talk to Hinata in real time while she'll be able to respond through the video chat." Nekura simply nodded, opening his chat program and waiting for Hinata's name to appear on the bot list.

"Thank you for all your help, Sigrdrífa-san, Probe-san!" said Hinata as she bowed to the two programs.

"Don't worry about it, just free my user and we'll be even," said Sigrdrífa before she pulled Hinata into a hug.

"It was no trouble, I was happy to help!" chirped Probe. "My main unit will keep your friends safe outside the computer and I shall defend you here!" At that moment, what looked like one of the tunnels airlines used to get people from the gates to the planes appeared. "Ah, that is the secure connection to Nekura's computer my user set up, please hurry, Hinata!" Hinata nodded and ran through the tunnel.

* * *

Hinata quickly found herself in what looked like a hotel lobby. Walking up to the front desk, she timidly asked, "Ano-sa, where am I?" The receptionist, a pretty woman whose suit bore magenta neon lines, looked at a guest book before smiling at Hinata.

"Ah, you must be Hinata, we received word you would be coming here. This is the best representation of the connection between our user's computer and the secure connection set up to bring you here. I'm to give you a room key that will allow you entry to a safe room where nobody can find you and you can contact my user and his group as soon as they find a safe place to do so," said the receptionist. She reached below the front counter and produced a key with the number 15 on it. "Room 15, you should be able to relax there," said the receptionist with a smile that Hinata returned before bowing and making her way to the room. Inside, she found herself in a simple hotel room with a bed, chair, small table, and attached bathroom, though she couldn't figure out what need a computer program would have for a bathroom.

However, Hinata could make good use of the facilities and took a quick shower before laying down on the bed to recover some energy, the bed proving to be surprisingly soft and the comfortable nightgown provided by the room having her asleep in moments.

* * *

"Hinata has successfully entered your computer Nekura-san, now I suggest we get outside the school to avoid the robots perusing us!" said T3-M4. Naruto was forced to strain his energy to the limit to use a Genjutsu that covered the whole group to allow them to escape, the droids searching for them being much dumber than academy students. Once outside, Kimiko and Miyuki quickly caught Naruto's scent and in short order had grabbed Akira and Ranko to join the blond's group in the Laser Tag staging area for a secure connection and so Nekura could recharge his computer with a wall outlet.

"Alright, Nekura, get that program running so we can talk to Hinata-chan!" said Naruto as he slumped to the ground, trying to regain some chakra before he had to do anything else.

"Calm down, Uzumaki, I'm working as fast as I can!" growled Nekura. With a sudden devious thought, he moved the mouse pointer away from the chat program he had been about to use and over to another one.

* * *

Hinata woke up to a beeping and stared at the floating message that read, HINATA, PLEASE PROCEED TO ROOM 3 SO WE CAN CHAT… NEKURA. Quickly pulling on her discarded uniform, Hinata made sure she didn't have a bad case of bed head before quietly walking to room 3, which appeared to have a big window for one wall. However, as Hinata stepped into the room, a bright red light swept over her, causing her to close her eyes. As the light faded, Hinata looked up to see a smirking Nekura staring at her through the window before a breeze around her body made her realize something. "Kyaaa, where are my clothes?" shrieked the girl.

The second Hinata's scream registered for Naruto, Nekura felt himself being slammed into by a snarling beast that quickly had him pinned to the wall. "After everything we've been through and you've seen me do, you choose now to do this kind of stuff?" snarled an enraged Naruto as he prepared to put Nekura in the intensive care unit while Akira, Miyuki, and Ranko struggled to hold him back.

"What an idiot, using a dirty chat program that only allows nude bots," muttered Kimiko as she sent Nekura a glare and focused on protecting Hinata's modestly. "You're lucky my Uncle Sota downloaded this program to my family's computer without realizing it was the adult version," she said as she quickly set up a user password and locked Nekura in the Child mode before bringing up a virtual closet of clothes for Hinata. "Alright Hinata, just give me a second…" With a smile, Kimiko found a miko outfit and Hinata sighed in relief as the clothes appeared on her. "I'm not sure if those will last beyond this chat session, but after you leave the session your uniform should be back on," said Kimiko over the sounds of Naruto giving Nekura an atomic wedgie filled the room.

"Thank you, Kimiko-chan!" said Hinata, a rosy blush still on her face.

"So, what's going on in there?" asked Miyuki. Hinata started to explain everything, while T3-M4 was receiving a similar report from Probe about the current state of the school network.

"Nekura, what was the name of the program sent into the festival?" asked Kimiko as a message window popped up.

Nekura glanced over from where he was hiding behind Kenshin from Naruto since the fox boy had his hand on Nenshousaiga and seemed eager for an excuse to draw the blade. "Spy Bear, why?"

"Looks like it's reporting in, it appears Caegot transformed the festival shrine grounds into a fortress to protect himself and locked the students in the dungeon," said Kimiko as she read the message Spy Bear had sent. "He's got Skuld-sensei somewhere else that the bear couldn't detect with the scanner he has, so most likely he moved her to a different computer."

"So a castle infiltration and hostage rescue situation, sounds easy enough…" Naruto started to say before scowling. "Kuso, I forgot we don't have Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke, Haku-ne-chan, Akemi-imotou, Aki, or the rest of the gang here!" he growled.

"Plus the castle in question is inside the computer," said Akira with a smirk.

"Yeah, to get in we'd have to gain control of the digitizing laser and bring ourselves into his world," said Naruto.

Ranko had been quiet up until now and stepped forward, saying, "I have an idea…."

* * *

Inside the computer lab, several of the robots were working to attach the digitizing laser and its computer to the tank body Keiichi had mentioned earlier. Caegot chuckled as he watched through his connection to a single hover bot surveying the whole process while sitting in the throne room in his new castle. "Soon all these meatbags will be under my control!" Caegot's plan was interrupted by a strange can that one of his Cybertroopers brought to him. It bore the word SPAM on the top and appeared harmless, so Caegot opened it, causing the image of a smiley face blowing a raspberry at him to appear. This was followed by a window popping up in front of him offering a deal in male enhancement. It was followed by an offer to chat with nude girls live, then one for locating classmates, an offer for a free game system, and then… ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE as the castle was filled with various pop up ads. Caegot was so distracted in trying to deal with the pop ups threatening to crush him that he didn't notice Probe, Sigrdrífa, and Hinata sneaking past his throne room and towards the castle dungeons.

* * *

In the dungeon of the castle, Ryeka, Kasumi, Gami, Mayuri, and Lean were all in a spread eagle position with their arms in blocks that sent electricity through them every few moments. The rest of the class were stuffed into individual cells, though they kept shooting worried looks to the five girls being tortured each time one of the girls screamed from pain. The group of Cybertroopers watching the dungeon seemed unusually talkative as they laughed at the girls' fate, so they missed the white-eyed kunoichi sneaking up on them. They didn't have time to react when Hinata's disk decapitated one of their number, Sigrdrífa's war hammer crushed another, and Probe killed the rest with a burst from the blaster mounted on his head.

Mikihisa Uematsu, Demiun Penin, Faruki Dakaso, and Adam, the four smartest boys in the class after Nekura, immediately ran over to the guards' remains and grabbed a glowing circle one of them had left behind as well as the guards' blasters. Adam held the ring out to Hinata, saying, "I saw that only the guard wearing this as a decoration on his armor could open a cell since I was the first one in here. I think with this we can free Ryeka, Kasumi, Yuri, Gami, and Lean!"

"You're right, that's a permission that enables a program like Probe and me to access areas. I have permissions for the entire school system, but we'll need to collect more permissions if we want to get to the rest of the castle," said Sigrdrífa. Hinata quickly used the permission to unlock all the restraints on the girls and the other students helped them sit down while Hinata did a quick healing jutsu to make sure they were stable.

"Let's get out of here, I don't think that spam attack will hold Caegot for long," said Hinata worriedly. With a shadow clone of Hinata supporting all five of the rescued girls, the group swiftly made their way out of the dungeon. Unfortunately, they ran into a group of Cybertroopers making a patrol of the castle. Luckily, all four boys were in the lead and reacted before the programs, sending a barrage of laser blasts into the green troopers. While the rest of the class armed themselves, the four boys took point with Probe to protect them as they made their way towards a side door of the castle.

* * *

"Spam attack a success," said Nekura as he watched his monitor. "I'm attempting to hack into his control of the laser now…"

"Firewall at 100 percent, Virus Guard running," said T3-M4. "Caegot will not be getting through this easily!"

"Then it's a good thing we left him a surprise," said Hinata with a somewhat evil smirk.

* * *

Inside his throne room, Caegot finally managed to destroy the original can that was releasing all the spam, freeing him from the mass of pop-up windows. He was battered and he could feel his memory being slightly corrupted by a few Trojan horses and viruses the popups had slipped into his code. "I'm going to kill those brats!" he growled before warping to the dungeon, only to find his captives gone and a giant bomb in their place. The resulting explosion left him battered and when he returned to his throne room after a teleport, he was angry beyond belief. Using a holographic computer interface, Caegot caused a panel of the wall to slide aside and reveal a chained up Skuld. "Those brats have caused me a lot of trouble, once I absorb you and your abilities I'll track them down and make them pay!" he hissed as he reached towards Skuld.

"I don't think so, ugly! Rasengan!" yelled Naruto as he appeared behind Caegot via Shunshin and with Rasengan ready. The virus was sent crashing through the wall, allowing Naruto time to pick the locks to Skuld's chains.

Caegot recovered in time to see Naruto pulling Skuld over his shoulder. "How the hell did you get in here?" roared the virus.

"While you were overwhelmed with that SPAM attack, Washu-sensei hacked the laser and took control of it from you since you were focusing your efforts here and left it vulnerable. I was then digitized with her own digitizer to stall you long enough for the class to escape and rescue Skuld-sensei. I'd back yourself up now, buddy, because you won't have much time left alive!" said Naruto before a glowing ring appeared around Skuld and him. The Yugtai lunged for his captive, only to have Naruto and Skuld disappear as Washu rematerialized them. Caegot tried to follow them, only to have a wall of flame spring up around the computer system he inhabited, locking him inside.

* * *

"Well, now that everyone is safe, what do we do about Caegot?" asked Miyuki as Hotaru, back in her civilian guise, led her class in tending to Skuld's class. Skuld herself was being tended to by her sisters Urd and Belldandy, who appeared to be singing softly as they bandaged her wounds and cared for her.

"Well, I've isolated his influence to the one computer," said Washu, calmly typing away at her holographic laptop, acting like she hadn't seen her daughter and in-laws wipe out all the robots in the room and allow her time to hack the digitizing laser. As she finished typing, Kenshin appeared in the door of the room.

"Way to go, Washu!" cheered doll A and B, earning the redhead some weird looks.

"The rest of the school is clear, my other students are working with Gosunkugi's students to make sure there are no robots hiding anywhere," said Kenshin.

"So, what are we going to do about Caegot?" asked Naruto. "We can't just leave him on that computer, can we?"

"Naruto is right, the Yugtai are able to hack almost any system by adapting their personal code, and it will only take him a short time to bypass the firewall I've set up since it's formed by an Earth computer," said Washu. "Our best bet is to force him into a storage medium we can remove from the computer… but to do that we'd have to wipe out most of his program inside the computer."

"Ummm, I think we have a problem," said Nekura suddenly, causing everyone to crowd around his laptop. "Caegot just activated part of Ryeka's program he carried over from her computer…"

"How do you know that?" asked Naruto.

"Because nobody else would program a Death Star game aside from that Star Wars Otaku," said Nekura as he gestured to the giant green battle station from the first Star Wars film.

"Well, what good does that do him? He's still stuck inside the computer and without the laser he can't make it a real space station, right?" asked Hinata.

"No, but as long as he's secure in the computer we can't touch him," said Washu. "If I tried to remove the drive he's using he'll simply escape into space since the computer's firewall has to be turned off with the computer. By protecting himself with the Death Star program Ryeka wrote, we can't touch him and after Naruto hurt him so badly he'll stay in there."

"So why don't we just blow it up?" asked Miyuki. "Ryeka's game was a cockpit simulation of the final battle of the first Star Wars movie; couldn't we use that to beat him?"

"Unfortunately the only way to succeed is to re-enter the computer and pilot the ships inside it, controlling them from the outside means he can mess with the controls and protect himself," said Washu.

"So we need to digitize ourselves, get in a bunch of starships, and blow up a moon sized battle station that is likely to be heavily defended?" asked Akira.

"Sounds fun, but what happens if we get shot down in the game?" asked Naruto. He had seen the movie with Hinata when they asked Ryeka about some of the posters on her wall and knew how heavily defended the first Death Star had been.

"You'll simply be kicked out of the game and returned to the real world," said Washu as she examined Ryeka's game. The redhead had placed Ryeka's CD in her own laptop and made a few adjustments to the program to make sure everything was safe. "Ryeka did a good job of making this program, Caegot can't remove the thermal exhaust port from the game to make the station invulnerable without the entire station collapsing. Since he needs the station to protect himself while he transmits himself into space and it will take a long time with the primitive system he's not used to working with, but we only have a short time to stop him…"

"Then we're going to need some help," said Naruto.

* * *

"When I get out of here the first thing I'm doing is taking over a warship and annihilating this place from the face of the planet!" screamed Caegot as he struggled to get past Washu's firewall. The redheaded genius had used references from several Earth movies as passwords for the various levels of the firewall and Caegot was having a hard time figuring them out. One that had really stumped him was the question, _What is the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?_ The same was true for the _Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything_. What really drove him crazy was the question _how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood_? These and other obscure things from Earth culture kept him busy for several hours and it was only when a Cybertrooper ran up to him that he took a break. "What is it?" he demanded.

"Sir, we've detected enemy star fighters approaching!" yelled the trooper.

* * *

"All right everyone, we've spent the whole afternoon practicing and we're the best in the simulators Washu-san provided," said Keiichi as he used the comm frequency for Gold Squadron. There were three squadrons making up the attack group. Gold Squadron was the best high speed drivers from Keiichi's class who scored the best in Washu's simulators for navigating the trench run to the exhaust port, since A-Wing fighters were among the fastest ships in the game. "Gold wing report in!"

"Gold One standing by," said Kazuhiro Shinji.

"Gold Two all four engines green and ready to go!" exclaimed Fukari Dakaso as he barely managed to keep from roaring ahead of the group.

"Gold Three, ready to waste some MXTHXR FXCKXRS!" yelled Soruna Somihara, switching from her normal quiet personality to her wild side.

"Gold Four, all systems normal," stated Tora Tanara calmly.

"Gold Five, I've got a bunch of proton torpedoes ready to go!" said Shiro Kensei, one of the few students in the class to also attend the magic class with Naruto.

A short distance from Gold Squadron, Red Squadron, which consisted of Kenshin's best students and a few additions piloting X-Wing Fighters, was also going through a similar procedure.

"Red leader, Red wing report in!" said Kenshin, in command of the second group responsible for providing cover fire for the attacking Gold Squadron.

"Red One, ready to strike like a bolt of lightning," said Hyaku Ichi.

"Red Two, all systems normal," reported the calm voice of Kanzan Rei.

"Red Three, let's do this!" said the cheerful voice of Shinomori Sakura, the class weapon expert.

"Red Fourrr, all systems norrrrrmall," said Miyuki while rolling her r's in pleasure at paying back the monster who had hurt Ryeka.

"Red Five, ready to show them they messed with the wrong people!" said Akira.

"Red six, ready to burn them in the fires of vengeance," said Naruto, intent on paying back the bastard who had hurt his friends and almost did the same to Hinata.

"Red Seven, all green and lasers armed!" said Ranko, who had made sure to knock Shugo out so he couldn't go into the computer and ruin everything with his ego and Kuno family love for speeches.

"Heads up, sensors indicate enemy fighters," said Keiichi as the virtual death star morphed into Caegot's head. The giant eyes glared at the approaching star fighters before Caegot's mouth opened, spawning several squads of TIE fighters. However, that was not the only surprise Caegot had for the group, a giant green Imperial Star Destroyer seemed to warp into the area. The huge capital ship launched its own wave of fighters, adding 72 more enemies to the mix.

"Where the heck did that thing come from?" demanded Naruto.

"It appears Caegot managed to find the hidden level Ryeka programmed into the game, it would allow the player to be part of a group attacking an Imperial Star Destroyer," said Washu's voice over the squadron radio. "Red Squadron, keep the Death Star TIEs busy, Caegot isn't the only one who can bring in surprises."

Suddenly, a crystalline ship shimmered into existence. "Leave the big ship to me, I've got the experience fighting stuff like this," said Ryoko as Ryo-Oh-Ki let out a loud "Miyaaaahhh!" The crystal ship shot towards the Star Destroyer, lasers shooting out from the cabbit ship's guns and laying waste to the squadron of fighters the Star Destroyer had launched.

"You heard her, Red Squadron, let's take care of these guys!" barked Kenshin as he led his class towards the swarm of TIEs coming from Caegot's Death Star. Kenshin's group had the best situational awareness, that is, being aware of everything around them, which made them best suited for being in the thick of the fighting. Red Squadron broke off in pairs, each set making sure to cover one another.

Naruto glanced at his sensor board and grinned as he saw Ranko flying to his right. "Well, Ranko, shall we show these guys why they don't mess with our friends?"

Naruto didn't need to see Ranko to know she was giving the famous Saotome smirk as she replied, "Of course. Looks like we've got four coming in dead ahead!"

Naruto lined up his targeting brackets on the lead TIE fighter on the left, leaving the right two to Ranko.

* * *

Ryoko grinned as Ryo-oh-ki's lasers destroyed bulkheads and TIE fighters all around her. This brought her back to one of the most challenging experiences of her life, breaking through Jurai's defensive fleet. Even though she'd been under Kagato's control, she had still loved the rush of combat and this computer game was allowing her to get that rush again. "I've got to get Washu and Ryeka to set up this program at home, it wouldn't be good if our skills got rusty, eh, Ryo-oh-ki?" she asked the cabbit, who replied with a loud "Miyahh!" of agreement. The cabbit ship suddenly rocked and Ryoko frowned as the ship didn't seem to be moving anymore. Calling up her ship's external sensors, she bit off a curse as she saw the Star Destroyer had caught her in a tractor beam. "Yeah, getting rusty leads to things like this happening," she growled as a swarm of TIE fighters raced towards her.

* * *

"Red squadron, my daughter could use some help," said Washu's voice over the comm.

"Affirmative command, we'll take care of her!" said Kenshin. "Reds four through seven, break off and assist our friends!"

"Got it, Red Leader, two flight on our way!" said Naruto before Ranko and he joined up with the Saotome siblings.

"Looks like they're focused on taking down Ryoko-sensei so much they forgot about us," said Ranko.

Miyuki's grin could practically be seen over the comm frequency as she said, "Let's pounce on them from behind!"

The TIE fighters had forgotten the rest of the group, their programming was to defend their commanding ship and right now only the Cabbit ship was attacking the Star Destroyer. That soon changed as the group of four X-wings tore through them with lasers blazing. With the kind of teamwork that only came after training with one another constantly, the four made their craft seem to dance as they avoided return fire. While her friends kept the TIEs occupied, Miyuki raced towards the Star Destroyer and fired a pair of proton torpedoes at the bottom hangar of the ship, striking the tractor beam projectors that kept Ryo-oh-ki in place. As the Cabbit ship rejoined the fight, Miyuki put her fighter into a loop that brought her to one of the trenches running along the port side of the Star Destroyer with Akira covering her back. On the starboard side, Naruto was covering Ranko while Ryoko and her ship destroyed the TIE fighters coming after them. As both sets of X-wings approached the bridge of the ship, the rear ship began firing laser blasts towards the two domes on either side of the ship. The shields at first stood up to the barrage, but as Ryo-oh-ki added her firepower, the bubble-like shields collapsed.

"Red Four, Tarrrrrrgeting solution acquirrrrred, two away!" purred Miyuki as her targeting computer finally got a lock on the port side shield generator.

"Red Seven, two away!" reported Ranko as she sent her own missiles racing towards the approaching dome. All four fighters peeled away from the imminent explosions, while Ryoko targeted the bridge area of the Star Destroyer. As soon as the shields had completely collapsed Ryoko fired and Ryo-oh-ki's lasers tore into the virtual ship's command center. Almost instantly, the giant ship started to lose power, its massive turbolaser batteries falling silent as explosions started to break the ship apart. A linked volley of proton torpedoes from each of the X-wings targeted at the middle of the dagger shaped ship only hastened the inevitable. The Star Destroyer was torn apart by the chain reaction the torpedoes caused, while the four X-wings and the Cabbit ship rejoined the battle.

* * *

It was at that moment that Keiichi lead his group into the trench leading to the famous thermal exhaust port. They had to deal with a series of turbolaser batteries firing at them as they roared down the trench. Keiichi lead Shinji and Dakaso while Somihara lead Tahara and Kensei. Keiichi's group was slightly ahead and below Somihara's, allowing them to take out ground-based turbolasers while the higher up group destroyed the few turbolasers able to change their angle of fire into the trench.

Keiichi appeared to be calm as he piloted his ship, but the part of him that was watching the road when he drove at high speeds was constantly analyzing the trench and looking for obstructions. So it was Keiichi who first spotted the point where the trench seemed to narrow slightly due to a trapezoid shaped obstruction on each side of the trench. "Tighten up, looks like some sort of obstruction," he said before he realized something important. There were no turbolaser blasts coming from beyond the gap, plus a slight blue glow was between the trapezoidal obstructions. "Gold squadron, pull up!" yelled Keiichi as he put his A-wing into a climb. Shinji and Somihara managed to follow their teacher's command in time, but Dakaso, Tahara, and Kensei were unable to pull up in time due to enemy fire from turbolasers and TIE fighters pinning them down and slammed into the energy barrier. Even though Keiichi knew his students were now rematerializing in Furinkan safe and sound, he still felt anger over their apparent deaths. Now, his wife Belldandy would be the first to tell you that Keiichi had a heart of gold and would never wish harm on someone else. But he was also very protective of those close to him and this included his students. "Red Squadron, we've got a problem, our annoyance put some barriers in the trench, we'll have to disable them before we can finish this thing off!"

"Copy, Gold Leader, it appears there are a series of power generators linked to each side of the force field projector, if we take them out you should be clear to proceed," said Kenshin. "Pull back and we'll take them out!" The remains of Gold Squadron formed up together, leaving the way clear for Red Squadron. "Red one through three, you're with me on the left side of the trench. Red four through seven, take the left side! Target turbolaser batteries and the power generators for the shield projectors." The groups split as ordered, with Ryoko flying ahead to keep the TIEs off the X-wings.

"Looks like he's put extra turbolasers around the exhaust port as well as an energy shield so you can't just fly above the exhaust port and fire straight down it," the space pirate reported as Red Squadron destroyed numerous generators and turbolaser batteries. "If Ryeka hadn't written the program so only an X-wing could fire the proton torpedoes into the port I'd be able to take this station out now!"

"Don't worry, Ryoko-san, we'll manage," said Keiichi as he lead Gold Squadron back into the trench. With Red Squadron clearing the way ahead, the three A-wings raced ahead at full speed, knowing that soon they would have company in the trench as the turbolasers suddenly stopped firing.

A report from Washu confirmed their fears. "TIE fighters entering the trench, be on your guard," said Washu.

Akira, who was pulling up from a strafing run on a Turbolaser battery, looped around to look at the entrance to the trench. "I see them, three TIEs, just like in the movie!" he reported.

"Red Four through Seven, keep our new friends busy while the rest of us escort Gold Squadron," ordered Kenshin. Naruto, Akira, Miyuki, and Ranko broke off from joining the rest of Red Squadron and raced towards the TIE fighters.

"Akira, I thought you said there were three?" asked Miyuki as lasers started to fill the space between the two groups. The kids found themselves greatly outnumbered as hidden TIE fighter launch bays around the trench opened up and released fresh fighters into the fray.

"Looks like we're going to be busy," muttered Naruto as he fired a proton torpedo that managed to take out two TIE fighters when they swerved into one another to avoid it.

* * *

In the real world, Washu, Belldandy, and Urd monitored the status of the people inside the computer. As the X-wings and A-Wings the students and teachers piloted were destroyed, the pilots were rematerialized in the school, where a recently arrived Kagome, Dr. Tofu, and Kasumi Tofu assisted Hotaru in giving them a quick checkup and making sure they were fine before sending them to get something to eat.

"Washu-san, I think you should see this," said Belldandy suddenly, causing the redheaded genius to walk over to the computer Belldandy was using to monitor half of Red Squadron, specifically Naruto's group.

Washu frowned as she asked, "I don't see anything wrong, what's got you worried?"

"Look at the status of Naruto's fighter," said Belldandy as she pointed to the image of an X-wing. While the images of the other X-wings showed bits of yellow and red where they had suffered damage, Naruto's X-wing was glowing a bright blue with bits of green where he had taken damage. Normally green showed a ship in perfect condition.

"Impossible, he's pushing his chakra into the simulated ship and enforcing it," said Washu. "Look, his synch with the system is at 100 percent and the ship is performing at levels it shouldn't be capable of reaching according to Ryeka's programming!"

"Even the simplest of machines have spirits, when a machine like a car, motorcycle, or bike gives its all and its rider or driver does the same, the two can reach a level never seen before," said Belldandy softly. "I've seen Keiichi do something similar many times, he has a bond with machines that allows him to bring out their peak performance. Naruto is probably subconsciously pushing his energy into the ship, bringing out this remarkable change."

"I'll have to test this," muttered Washu, getting a gleam in her eye that the watching Ayeka recognized.

"Washu, no experimenting on him!" said Tenchi. He had just returned with Inuyasha from prowling the halls and making sure no robots remained in condition to attack anyone.

Washu pouted as she said, "Oh sure, go ahead and ruin my fun!"

* * *

Naruto scowled, even with everything his group was doing, enough TIEs had managed to slip past and pounce on the rest of the attack force. The rest of Red Squadron had gone down in blazes of glory, each of them fighting to the last and taking down many TIE fighters to protect Gold Squadron. However, they had bought enough time for Gold Squadron to reach the thermal exhaust port. However, Keiichi, Shinji, and Somihara found their target surrounded by a ring of turbolasers that rose up from inside the super structure and opened fire right after they reached the exhaust port. Caught by surprise, all three remaining members of Gold Squadron vanished in bursts of digital flame. "All right two flight, we're all that's left!" barked Naruto as he roared into the trench, "Let's show them what we're made of!"

"Go, I'll hold them back!" yelled Ryoko as Ryo-oh-ki started covering the backs of the four teens.

Luckily for the four, the surface defenses had been taken down by the previous runs and it was mostly clear sailing until three TIEs, two normal and one the same as Darth Vader's distinctive TIE Advanced, soared down after them. Naruto dropped back to play rear guard, his stronger shields giving him a better chance to survive. However, the first shots slipped past his shields as he side slipped and struck Akira's ship in the upper right engine. The Saotome boy's fighter exploded and Akira found himself being fussed over by his parents and Hotaru in the real world.

"All right, you bastards, let's see how you like this!" barked Ranko as she suddenly accelerated before pulling a loop and racing head one towards the TIEs and Naruto with her lasers blazing. The fox boy managed to avoid her shots, but one of the normal TIEs was hit and exploded in a ball of flame. Ranko soared through the flame and then pulled up out of the trench. "That explosion singed me, give me a moment…" Ranko was cut off as a turbolaser battery targeted her and fired, piercing her ship's weakened shields easily.

This left Miyuki and Naruto in the trench. "Naruto, I've got a plan, you're going to have to take the shot at the exhaust port," said Miyuki. She suddenly reversed thrust, sending her almost to a halt in the trench, causing Naruto and the TIE fighters to roar past her stationary fighter. Miyuki fired off a snap shot that reduced the remaining normal TIE to debris, only for the TIE Advanced to do the same to her.

"All right, you scumbag, let's finish this!" yelled Naruto as he put his fighter into a climb. The Tie Advanced followed, chasing after Naruto. "Psych!" yelled the blond as he suddenly inverted his fighter and fired off a pair of proton torpedoes that shot right down the exhaust port. At the same time, Ryoko swooped down on the TIE advanced and blasted it to bits. The two ships roared away from the simulated Death Star as a chain reaction in the core caused it to explode in a giant fireball.

* * *

"He did it!" squealed Miyuki as she started bouncing up and down in delight as the rest of the watching students burst into cheers.

"He might have blown up Caegot's base, but now the virus is trying to escape!" exclaimed Washu as she pointed to a blip racing away from the destruction.

* * *

"So he thinks he can get away?" asked Ryoko dangerously before swerving in pursuit of Caegot's escape vehicle, a bright green blob that had broken off from the Death Star and was now racing towards space. Naruto followed behind Ryoko, his simulated X-wing no match for Ryo-oh-ki's speed, though he wasn't too far behind. Unfortunately, Caegot proved to be just fast enough to stay at the edge of Ryo-oh-ki's firing range.

"Damn it, give me more speed!" growled Naruto as he tried to coax more speed from his engines by shutting power from his lasers to the engines. The added power allowed him to close the gap and Naruto switched from lasers to proton torpedoes and struggled to get a lock on Caegot. Just as the targeting cursor on Naruto's console became the green of a solid lock, Caegot shot through a swirling blue portal that closed behind him.

* * *

"Kuso, we almost had him!" growled Ryoko as she punched the wall after being rematerialized along with Naruto. Hinata had immediately taken her boyfriend aside to check him over for harm while Ayeka and Tenchi had forced Ryoko to let Washu examine him.

"Yeah, who knows where he is now?" muttered Naruto.

Urd's face gained a Cheshire grin as she said, "He's right here!" while holding up a glowing green CD with a frowning emoticon drawn on it. "We put this CD in as you destroyed the Death Star to lure him into as an escape route, only to eject it as soon as he loaded himself onto the CD."

"I contacted Kiyone and Mihoshi and they'll be here to pick him up tomorrow," said Washu.

At that moment, the bell rang and the students were dismissed. With Ryeka having made a complete recovery, the whole group went to the Higurashi shrine.

* * *

"Hey kids, you look beat, rough day?" asked Souta as the group entered the home. Now in college, Kagome's brother worked as a game tester for the big game companies, testing their games for bugs and glitches.

"Yeah, today was so bad dad said no training and to just relax," said Kimiko as she tossed her backpack aside, an action the rest of the group followed.

"Well, I have the perfect thing to help you relax," said Souta as he reached down to his feet and pulled out a helmet and pilot's yoke. "These are part of a new video game system that projects the game into the helmet's view plate so it seems you're inside a fighter plane… why are you all looking at me like that?"

* * *

When Kagome got home a few hours later from an appointment to get Haruka's picture taken in a kimono, she found her little brother tied to a chair in the living room with several cables from his new video game system and with the helmet stuffed over his head to keep him quiet.

"Souta-oji-san, what happened?" asked Haruka as she tilted her head to the side curiously. She had her long silver hair pulled up in a large ponytail and was dressed in a sparkling pink kimono with long sleeves and a short skirt and the pose looked adorable.

As soon as Kagome had removed Souta's gag, the young man scowled and said, "The kids didn't want to play video games and threatened to shove the throttle up my a…" he was cut off by Kagome bashing him on the head with a rejoinder not to swear, leaving Haruka confused but perfectly willing to go up and join her sister and friends in watching _The Princess Bride_ as part of their English homework.

* * *

**Good lord, 36 and half pages, not counting author notes. This is my longest chapter ever! Okay, I'll try to get the next one out sooner.**

**On a side note, I'm starting a poll: Who should Shino be paired up with in Hanyou Hurricane? Choices are Sakura, a Filler Girl, or an OC I'll create. Please go to my profile and vote.**


	5. Trial 4: Chaos Grows and More Training

**Ugh, e****x****actly twenty pages working through writer's block and on a limited time slot for writing because of work…. Ugh. I'm sorry for the delay, I will try to get the next chapter out more quickly.**

**I'm sorry to say that I've decided to cut some of the side stories with all the submitted original characters I was planning, this chapter took so long because of writer's block that I realized I can't possibly write good enough stuff to focus on all the fantastic characters you guys sent me as well as my main characters. So, the story will be a bit shorter than I thought in the school days arc, but the mega adventure arc will come up sooner and be more awesome hopefully. Still, it's a long way off.**

"All right, Naruto, place your hands on this sensor and push chakra into it," said Washu as her fingers flickered over her holographic laptop. Ryeka was beside her grandmother and assisting her, while Hinata watched worriedly from the side. It was the day after Caegot's attack and since the school had been closed for repairs the group had as usual come to the Masaki's house for their training that afternoon, only to have Washu drag the two shinobi aside for some tests.

"I don't see what the point of this is!" growled Naruto. He had been forced to endure a full physical examination and he was getting irritated.

"When you were in the virtual world you managed to channel chakra into the simulated ship and increase its performance; we're going to see if you can do the same thing in the real world," explained Washu. "Plus, you were digitized twice in the same day; we need to make sure there are no negative effects." Naruto grumbled but did as he was told. He then had to do the same exercises in his female form.

"Well?" demanded Naruto-chan as she tapped her foot, slightly annoyed at the length of the tests.

"You're fine, no negative effects from being digitized twice in the same day," said Washu absentmindedly as she examined some of the data from the tests.

"And the chakra channeling?" asked Naruto-chan.

"Well, we've already seen you can focus chakra in something like a sword to make it stronger, but these tests had you putting your charka into the circuits of a machine. It seems, Naruto, that you can boost the performance of any machine by channeling chakra into it," said Ryeka before closing her computer.

"Finally! Can we train now?" asked Naruto-chan. Before anyone could say anything, Ryoko teleported into the lab.

"Kiyone and Mihoshi are here to get Caegot, plus they've got a surprise for you, Ryeka!" she said to her daughter.

"A surprise?" asked the cyan haired girl before running out of the lab to greet her aunts, only to be pulled into a hug by a young woman with blue hair in pigtails dressed in a light blue uniform similar to two other woman sitting on the couch. "Mayuka-nee-chan!" squealed Ryeka as she returned the hug.

"This is your sister, Ryeka?" asked Kimiko, who had been waiting outside the lab with Ranko, Miyuki, and Akira for the tests to be finished and answering some questions about Caegot's actions that the three uniformed women asked.

"You mean you haven't told them about your wonderful big sister who has been working hard to graduate from the Galaxy Police?" asked Mayuka as she scowled at Ryeka, who took a good look at her big sister, noticing for the first time the pin on her jacket.

"I can't believe you graduated!" squealed Ryeka as she tightened her hug on her big sister. "I thought you still had a year to go in your courses!"

"Well, something changed everyone's minds," said Mayuka sheepishly as she returned to her seat.

"First of all, introductions," said Ayeka. "Naruto, Hinata, the blonde is Kuramitsu Mihoshi and the greenete is Makibi Kiyone, both old friends of ours. They're both Galaxy Police detectives and this is Mayuka, our adopted daughter."

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you," said Mayuka with a smile.

"Come on, tell us how you graduated early!" said Ryoko eagerly as she set down some sake for the adults and sodas for the teenagers.

"Well, our class was taking a trip to the prison to learn about the regulations and prison system, plus stand a few watches with the regular guards as a learning experience," explained Mayuka. "However, one of the prisoners was a rather notorious space pirate captain and his crew busted him out and in the process took out most of the guards. I managed to keep my classmates from panicking and kept the rest of the prisoners from escaping until help arrived. The warden of the prison was hurt in the break out but survived and gave a very glowing report about my actions. My teachers thought I performed well enough to let me graduate ahead of my class!"

"That's our daughter!" squealed Ryoko and Ayeka as they hugged Mayuka from either side.

"I'm very proud of you, Mayuka," said Tenchi as he hugged his daughter.

"Yeah, we always knew you would make it far!" said Ryeka as she joined the hug with Washu not far behind.

"Sorry to interrupt this family moment," said Kiyone as she held Mihoshi back from joining the hug, "but we've still got some questions that need to be answered about Caegot…" The hug was reluctantly broken up. Ryeka and Washu gave their accounts of the events from the previous day, as did Naruto and Hinata.

"Now that that's out of the way, let's celebrate!" yelled Ryoko as she wheeled out a karaoke machine. The party that followed lasted long into the night.

(0o0o0)

"Your family definitely knows how to throw a party," said Akira to Ryeka as the group walked to school the next day. Due to the ladle lady, Naruto-chan was walking beside Hinata, once again causing a few delivery boys and pedestrians to crash into obstacles whenever she flipped her longer hair out of her eyes or smiled at Hinata, which was often as the Hyuuga girl was holding Naruto's hand.

"Well, Auntie Kiyone and Mihoshi love Karaoke, combine that with my mothers' love for sake and things get wild," said Ryeka.

"Sounds kind of like when dad and uncle Ryoga get together to train, they tear up the country side pushing each other to the limit while mom and Aunt Akari just try to keep from exploding at them," replied Akira.

"Oi, if you two lovebirds would stop talking for a moment you'll want to see this!" yelled Naruto-chan, causing the two to look forward and see Mayuka leaning against the Furinkan wall waiting for them.

Mayuka smiled and waved as the group walked up to her. "Yo Imouto-chan, my sempai asked me to take a look at the school and make sure there isn't any alien tech left behind."

"Okay, I know the whole 'no influencing developing cultures' law, but I doubt you'll find much alien tech," said Ryeka with a smirk before leading her sister into the school, pausing only long enough to watch Miyuki shred Shugo's bokken while Naruto-chan set his pants on fire.

(0o0o0)

The air of tension in the computer class room was understandable to Hinata, she kept expecting to see some of the robots or Caegot popping out of nowhere and the rest of the class was just as tense. Thanks to the expert care of Hotaru as well as Dr. Tofu and his wife Kasumi, the students and Skuld had all recovered. Strangely, Nekura, who seemed to love showing anyone up, was downplaying his role in the rescue of everyone, even when Hinata told everyone how he had helped her. It wasn't until Lean marched over to Nekura and pulled him into a searing kiss as thanks that the boy lightened up. The rest of the class went smoothly as Nekura was in a daze from the kiss and work on rebuilding the virtual festival resumed.

(0o0o0)

"Told you," said Ryeka with a smirk as the group walked back to the Masaki house after school. Mayuka had gone over the school with a fine-toothed comb and the only thing that had made her suspicious was some of Skuld's equipment, but the black haired genius was able to convince her in private that everything had been produced by Skuld. She had joined the teens for lunch and laughed along with everyone as Naruto used Shugo's own bokken to perform Sennen Goroshi on the boy.

"Yeah, yeah, now how about we get back home so we can have some fun?" asked Mayuka.

"Sure, I've still got to give you my present for graduating!" said Ryeka with a grin.

Mayuka blinked before looking worried as she said, "It isn't a giant gun, right? There are regulations on what we can or can't use!"

"Of course not, and it's not like you need a gun!" muttered Ryeka. "I've been planning this for a while, you'll like it!"

"It's not a ship is it? I remember the time you tried to make a working X-wing and it broke apart on your first flight in mid-air!" exclaimed Mayuka, not looking at all reassured.

"That was because I designed it for space travel but forgot to factor in exiting the atmosphere!" yelled Ryeka as she waved her arms in anger as the group approached the Masaki house.

Any further argument was cut off as Ryeka opened the door while looking back at her older sister, only to be pulled into a hug by a woman wearing ornate robes and with her blue hair pulled up in a high ponytail that fell to her knees. "Ryeka-chan! As soon as we heard we came rushing right over!" sobbed the woman.

"Misaki, let her breathe," said a calm voice. The blue haired woman turned to look at a black haired woman in similar robes with a pout on her face.

"This is the first time I've seen my granddaughter in months and you think I should let her go, Funaho-nee-san?" she asked.

"I believe it's because Ryeka is turning an alarming shade of blue," said Mayuka, who regretted speaking up because Misaki dropped Ryeka to latch on to her.

"Mayuka-chan, we're so proud of you for graduating!" squealed the woman.

Funaho sighed and grabbed Misaki's ponytail, forcing the bluette to release Mayuka. "I believe some tea would be perfect to introduce us to everyone over," she suggested. At that moment, Ayeka and Ryoko appeared with tea sets and the group was seated around the table.

Ryeka took a deep breath as she said, "Everyone, I want to introduce you to my grandmothers on Ayeka-oka-san's side, Funaho and Misaki Jurai, co-empresses of planet Jurai. Funaho-oba-san, Misaki-oba-san, these are my friends Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuuga Hinata, Saotome Ranko, Akira, and Miyuki, and Higurashi Kimiko. They are the ones who helped rescue me from Caegot, who you evidently heard about and came rushing over because of."

Misaki had glanced over the whole group with a smile, but then her eyes snapped back to Naruto, whose tails were twitching slightly from having to sit down, and she let out a squeal of "Kawaii!" before seeming to teleport around the table to hug Naruto, who struggled to get free for a second before using Kawarimi to switch with a pillow from the couch.

Naruto gulped for air before gasping, "Hinata-chan is the only one who can hug me like that!" Hinata instantly gained a blush, but Misaki's attention had been attracted to the twitching ears on Miyuki and Kimiko's heads. Both girls found themselves trapped in the energetic woman's hug as she squealed about how cute her granddaughter's friends were.

Funaho only sighed at her co-wife's attitude towards all things cute and said, "Now, we appreciate your helping Ryeka, but Earth is far too primitive to know about alien life. I'm afraid we're going to have to modify everyone's memories to erase any knowledge of the presence of alien life here." Funaho suddenly felt the room grow cold as everyone focused some killing intent on her. But it was Naruto slamming his tea cup down on the table so hard it broke that had her attention.

"You have no right to decide to do that! Ryeka is our friend and erasing that knowledge would mean we wouldn't know her! We've fought together and there is no way you can erase the bonds that have formed between us!" snarled the fox boy, his eyes changing to a blood red as youki surged through his system.

"Naruto is right!" said Akira as he stood up and faced the two queens, with Miyuki and Ranko joining him seconds later.

Kimiko flexed her claws as she said, "If you weren't Ryeka's grandmother we'd rip you apart for trying to make us forget her!"

It was then that a flare of energy appeared around Ryeka, whose hair shadowed her eyes. As she raised her head, Funaho and Misaki were suddenly reminded of Ryoko when she was under Kagato's control and attacking Jurai. "If you think you can do something like that to my friends because I made a stupid mistake like letting a virus get into my computer then you aren't worthy of being called my grandmothers!" she said in a voice that practically crackled with power.

Misaki and Funaho glanced at one another before breaking out in laughter, which caused everyone to sweat drop and stare at them. "You all pass," said Funaho with a smile. "We never intended to erase everyone's memories, especially after what Washu has told us about this town, this is the one place aliens would seem to blend right in. This was a test to see how devoted you all are to one another and you all passed with flying colors."

Ayeka and Ryoko, who had been frozen in silence up until now suddenly loomed over the two queens, their glares making Ryeka and Mayuka shiver at memories of past misdeeds when they were still small. As Tenchi's wives started yelling at the older women, the group slipped away to Ryeka's room, where Ren-oh-ki had been hiding from Misaki.

As soon as she was in the room, Ryeka opened a door to her lab and workshop, where her R2-D2 droid greeted them with a happy series of beeps and whistles. T3-M4 looked over from where he was plugged into a computer and gave his own greeting to the group before going back to his tasks. Ryeka typed a command on her holographic laptop and a panel in the wall slid aside to reveal an R2 unit. Unlike R2-D2, this R2 unit's metal body was silver and white and it had green details where R2 was blue. "This is Whistler. I based him on the droid of the same name from the X-wing series. He's programmed to help you in the Galactic Police. I've included routines for creativity, surveillance, lock-picking and forceful entry, a certain amount of deductive reasoning, escape, and evasion. He's immune to ion blasts and has the best data storage capacity I could get for you. He'll be able to contain practically the entire Galaxy Police database in his memory and can remotely look up anything not in his files," said Ryeka with pride.

"Wow… he's awesome Imouto-chan!" squealed Mayuka as she bent down to look at Whistler, who swiveled his main photoreceptor to look at her and played a happy tune. "Besides the programming what else did you put in him?"

"Well, he has booster jets, a submarine mode, plenty of tools… basically anything R2-D2 has Whistler has since I wanted him to be good for any situation you found yourself in. He can cut you free if you're captured, hack computers, perform demolitions work, act as a mobile communications center… you basically have to see how he performs to decide if you need me to add or remove features."

"Thanks Ryeka, I'll take good care of him!" said Mayuka as she hugged her sister.

It was at this point that Ryoko phased into the room and said the queens needed to talk to the kids. While they were still mad, the teens accepted the apologies of Funaho and Misaki. The two queens presented Mayuka with their own gifts, a Jurai energy blade and a permit to carry concealed weaponry on any planet of the galaxy for when she was undercover. The Jurai queens departed the next day with Mayuka, Mihoshi, and Kiyone providing them an escort.

(0o0o0)

A few days after Mayuka left, things had settled down at Furinkan, though the teachers were starting the reviews for the first semester's finals. Keiichi's final for Driver's Ed involved the first of the student's real behind the wheel sessions. If they passed they would continue the sessions during the next semester while starting the car maintenance part of the course. Hotaru's final was a rather impromptu trauma center when a gas pipe in the chemistry lab sprung a leak due to the actions of one of the students not following Urd's instructions and exploded when the same student stupidly turned on his Bunsen burner even after Urd had yelled for everyone to stop. Kenshin's final involved infiltrating a building he was guarding without being caught by the teacher himself or the several robotic cameras Skuld had patrolling the building. Skuld had her class write the programs for the hover bots detection and pursuit protocols, though Hinata had to work on a different robot with a different design to keep her from having an unfair advantage in Kenshin's final due to knowing the programming of the robots. Gosunkugi's final was the dullest; it was a multiple choice test on the basics of magic. Students who couldn't pass the test would have a new elective the next semester, but those that passed, like Naruto and Miyuki, got to go to Spell Theory, where they would learn about specific useful spells as well as more about magical creatures. The students were given a week off from classes and returned to find a few changes.

(0o0o0)

Aside from now taking biology and home economics with Belldandy instead of physics with her husband and chemistry with her sister, the first four classes of the day stayed the same. The changes came in the classes after lunch. Ninja 101 was now a bi-weekly class, alternating with Urban Combat taught by Atsuko 'Nuku Nuku' Natsume. The cheerful cat woman was quick to make friends with her class as she taught them the basics of fighting in a large urban areas like Nerima, even having Ranma come in one day for some "do's and Don'ts" of fighting in various places in the ward. The cat woman also covered fighting against things like tanks, helicopters, and other mecha that had the kids wondering just what her life had been like prior to becoming a teacher. The fact that she had videos of her fighting various military hardware made the class very interesting and gave Naruto several ideas on fighting different types of similar summons such as giant birds, sea creatures, and ogres.

Car maintenance held a surprise for Naruto. Ryeka was in the class despite not having taken Driver's ed. "Hey Ryeka, what are you doing here?" asked the kitsune as he slid into a seat beside her.

"Otou-san won't let me tinker with the family car, I may know more about science than most people but I lack experience with automobiles. I'm limited in this class, so it will actually be a challenge to me!" replied the cyan haired girl. And she was challenged, Keiichi was a very good mechanic and had worked on many vehicles in the past, ensuring his students learned everything they needed to know.

(0o0o0)

It was several weeks into the new term when the group left school heading for the Saotome house and dojo. As they entered the compound, they found Li Na doing a practice kata in the front yard. "Nihao! They await you in the dojo!" chirped the Amazon girl.

They turned out to be Ranma, Akane, Shampoo, Mousse, and a little old woman who was even more wrinkled than Tsunade's true form to Naruto's eyes. She had the largest aura Naruto, Hinata, Kimiko, and Ryeka had ever sensed from a human her age. "Naruto, Hinata, Kimiko, Ryeka, I'm honored to introduce you to Elder Cologne of the Joketsuzoku (Chinese Amazons)," said Ranma. "I have asked her for permission to train the four of you in the Joketsuzoku techniques she taught me. She graciously came here to test if you're worthy of the knowledge."

Cologne took a puff on her pipe before saying, "And you didn't lie, son-in-law, when you said all four had potential. I'm sure all of them and your own children can surpass you eventually!" with a cackle.

"How can you say that when you haven't even seen us in action... old ghoul?" asked Naruto, causing Hinata to groan at her fiancé's lack of tact and the adults to chuckle at the memory of Ranma calling Cologne the exact same name.

"For one thing, you beat Happi, for another you fought well in your cursed form despite being born a boy and receiving the curse in the middle of a fight. All of the girls reacted well to Happosai, deflecting his glomp attack," replied Cologne before grasping the gnarled staff that lay beside her and walking to the center of the dojo. "Now, I want you all four of you to come at me at once, we'll see how strong you are that way!" The adults, Miyuki, Akira, and Ranko had all moved to the edge of the dojo with Li Na, but the four testees didn't move at all. "Well, come on!" barked Cologne, causing the four to glance at one another before charging her.

Cologne's staff becoming a brown blur and sending all four aspirants flying quickly proved Cologne was not an average old woman. She easily blocked or dodged their next series of attacks and only raised an eyebrow when Naruto and Kimiko revealed the respective kitsune and inu features. However, Hinata's Byakugan and its extrasensory abilities proved a shock to her and Hinata managed to close a single Tenketsu when Cologne thought the bluette couldn't sense her attack from behind. Nevertheless, the aged Amazon jabbed the point herself, reopening it with her knowledge of acupuncture. Ryeka's powers also surprised her, allowing the cyan haired girl to almost slice Cologne's staff in half, only for the elder to perform one of her sudden mid air changes and avoid having her weapon damaged.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" yelled Naruto as he landed from a staff blow, increasing the number of opponents Cologne was dealing with.

"Very impressive," said Cologne as she eyed the ten clones that joined her original four opponents. "Let's take this outside!"

Outside the dojo, foxfire, energy blasts, chakra beams, and low level jutsu started flying left and right, though Cologne used the breaking point to provide a temporary shield for herself from the attacks with the resulting geyser of rocks and dirt. "She's so fast!" gasped Hinata as she was sent skidding back from another staff blow.

Ryeka analyzed the situation before saying, "She's dodging all our long range attacks!" the rest of the group understood and immediately charged Cologne again, only now Naruto and Kimiko drew their blades and Ryeka formed an energy sword. Cologne's staff was suddenly covered in a thin shell of energy, allowing her to parry the attacks and keep on fighting. The fight moved up to the nearby rooftops, where Ryeka had a slight advantage since she was able to fly higher than Cologne could jump, at least until Cologne started using Naruto's head as a boosting platform. Finally, Cologne managed to paralyze Kimiko with a pressure point while Hinata was busy healing Ryeka's foot where the alien girl had stepped on a rusty nail after getting sent cashing into a nearby empty lot. This left Naruto alone on the ground against Cologne. The fox boy was winded, but ready to keep on going.

"You're not bad for an old lady, if Baa-chan didn't drink as much she'd probably be half as good as this!" exclaimed Naruto as he assumed a Battojutsu stance, causing Cologne to raise an eyebrow.

"Give it up foxy, you're facing three thousand years of Joketsuzoku history," said Cologne. Her calm facade was broken as Naruto burst into a cloud of smoke while hands shot out of the ground and grabbed her staff, though Cologne herself escaped their grasp. She suddenly found Naruto dropping towards her with Nenshousaiga in hand.

"Amatsu Kitsune Ryu: Enokorogusa Tsuchi (Heavenly Fox Style: Foxtail Hammer)!" yelled Naruto as he brought his blade down on Cologne.

"Bakusai Tenketsu (Breaking Point)!" yelled Cologne as she jabbed the ground, sending a geyser of rocks and dirt at Naruto and destroying his underground clones while knocking the original down. "You're good boy, but you lack experience," as she regained her staff and prepared to unleash a thousand strikes on the boy as he was stunned. "Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken (Imperial Roasting Chestnuts in the Fire Fist)!" yelled Cologne as her staff started to lash out.

"Shugohakke Rokujuyon Sho (Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms)!" yelled Hinata as she appeared between Naruto and Cologne, her chakra beams deflecting Cologne's attack. Cologne's eyes widened at Hinata's speed, then the Joketsuzoku elder was forced on the full defensive.

"Splitting Cat Hairs!" gasped Cologne, causing 14 images of her to start circling Naruto and Hinata.

Naruto leapt into the air as Hinata said, "Hakkeshou Kaiten!" The heiress's chakra dome slammed into Cologne, who flew into the air where a recovered Ryeka joined Naruto in a fast exchange of jabs with the old woman. As the three separated, a series of twangs was heard and Cologne suddenly found herself pinned to the ground by four arrows Kimiko had fired. Cologne found an energy sword, a kunai, Nenshousaiga, and Imiheijin (Purification Sword Blade) at her throat. The old woman chuckled; they had beaten her fair and square.

"Li Na, why haven't you tried to catch this fox?" asked Cologne once she had been released.

"Aiyah, what you smoke, Great Grandmother?" shrieked the young Joketsu, lapsing into what she called her bimbo speech from nerves. "Hinata kill Li Na too too quick if Li Na try steal her airen!"

Cologne looked closely at Naruto and Hinata before nodding. "I see what you mean, Granddaughter, they are closer than most married couples I've seen," she said. "Well, all four of you pass, I'll expect you all to come to the Nekohaten after school to start your training!"

(0o0o0)

After the group arrived at the restaurant the next day, they were each given a package containing the restaurant's uniform. The girls ended up wearing black cheongsam bearing the restaurant's name on the back while Akira wore white kung fu pants and a black mandarin top. However, when Naruto opened his package, he found one of the cheongsam. "Ummm, Cologne-sensei.... I think you gave me the wrong package," said Naruto with a slight blush on his face. He let out a yelp as a glass of cold water was poured over him.

"Don't complain," Cologne told the soaked fox girl. "When Ranma had to do this he was in the same situation but unable to change forms at the end of the day! Besides, a fox girl will bring in more customers than a fox boy!" Naruto-chan grumbled but changed into the dress after drying off, glad she didn't take off her changing tank top and thus didn't have to ask one of the full time girls to help her put on a bra.

(0o0o0)

Cologne's training consisted of catching bowls of ramen and other Chinese dishes on plates as the old woman and Shampoo tossed them out of the Nekohaten kitchen. Naruto-chan and Hinata quickly managed to get the hang of using chakra to make sure the dishes and their contents stuck to their hands, with the other members of the group catching on soon after, though they used their chi instead of chakra. With the group bouncing off the walls and ceiling to catch the tossed dishes, the restaurant patrons got a good show. When the dinner rush died down, Cologne left the restaurant in the hands of Mousse, Shampoo, and Li Na while she sparred one on one with all her students to get a full grasp on their individual skills while the rest of the group started the training they would all do.

The first thing Cologne had the group work on was the Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken. The training for the high speed punching attack was to grab chestnuts out of a blazing fire without being burned. She quickly realized that due to her handling of foxfire, Naruto's hands were pretty much fireproof and she would have to use the alternate training method Ranma devised by grabbing fish out of a tank without getting her hands wet.

(0o0o0)

Between the training at the Nekohaten, school, and creating Kage Bunshin to do their homework, chores and train at home, Naruto and Hinata were exhausted and barely managed to crawl into their futons each night before falling asleep. Both had grasped the training Cologne put them through quickly, Hinata thanks to her clan's taijutsu and Naruto by sheer force of will, so Cologne had moved them onto training for the Bakusai Tenketsu. This training involved them being suspended in mid-air by ropes and swung at giant boulders with a single finger the only means of breaking the bolder as they sought to find the boulder's Breaking Point. While Cologne had demonstrated the technique's use in combat, the real advantage of the technique was that the training toughened the user's body up. Naruto was pretty sure he could now take one of Lee's punches without flinching, though if the wolf boy opened the gates Naruto wasn't so sure. The training was exhausting, causing Naruto to often stay in female form so Hinata could massage her aches away before the fox girl would crawl up to her bed and often stayed in female form for the day if splashed by the ladle lady on the way to school.

(0o0o0)

Two weeks after the training with Cologne started, Hinata, Jiraiya, and Hoshiko were woken up by a female scream from the bathroom. Jiraiya burst into the room with a Rasengan in each hand, ready to kill the pervert peeking on his god-daughter. Hinata was ready to beat up anyone attacking Naruto-chan with her bare fists. Hoshiko somehow pulled a giant naginata out of her robes and was ready to go to town with it. What they found was Naruto-chan passed out on the floor of the bathroom with some blood trickling out from between her legs and a bump on her head from where she had hit the floor. Jiraiya was immediately shoved out of the room and forbidden from entering while Hoshiko and Hinata worked on reviving the kitsune girl.

Ten minutes later, Naruto opened her eyes as Hinata used some smelling salts to wake her up. "Ugh, Hinata-chan, I had the most awful dream, I was bleeding from down there..." muttered the blonde kitsune. She realized that she was wearing a large t-shirt as well as sweat pants. "Hinata-chan, what happened to my clothes?" she asked the blushing Hyuuga heiress.

"Well, Naruto-chan... it wasn't a dream..." and Hinata proceeded to explain what had happened.

(0o0o0)

Naruto-chan's scream of "WHAT?" shook Nerima, waking up most of the prefecture's inhabitants and sending animals scrambling for cover.

(0o0o0)

"The only good thing about this is I get to stay home from school," muttered Naruto-chan as she sat on the couch watching TV while Hoshiko worked in the kitchen. It had taken Hinata a good fifteen minutes to calm the kitsune down and get her to listen to the Hyuuga girl, who had gone through this already and had advice for her fiancé. The first part was resulting in Naruto-chan having a candy bar she occasionally bit into since Hinata had warned her to watch her caffeine intake. The second part had been very embarrassing; Hinata had been forced to help Naruto-chan with a tampon. The blonde kitsune had been very disturbed by the sensation of the tampon inside her. Jiraiya had been surprisingly helpful, digging out some old scrolls Tsunade had used that described meditation techniques to help a kunoichi maintain her focus during this unpleasant time and to deaden the pain. "Too bad I'm missing Gosunkugi-sensei's first day of lecturing on magical beasts."

(0o0o0)

Gosunkugi grinned as he opened the textbook on magical creatures the class had received copies of the previous day. He had gotten a chuckle out of their reactions to seeing the latest Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. Looking at the class, he asked, "Does anyone care to guess why we are using this role-playing guide?"

At first nobody raised their hands, then Violet raised her hand with a doubting expression on her face. "Sensei, you can't expect us to believe all these creatures really exist, do you?" she asked.

"How do you explain me?" replied Natasha from where she was hovering in mid-air and grading papers at a small desk that hid her lower body from sight and thus prevented the males in the class from seeing up the leather mini skirt she was wearing.

"Or Naruto and Kimiko," countered Jason.

"Right on all accounts," said Gosunkugi. "Most of the creatures in this book exist in some universe or used to exist in our universe before either blending in with humans like youkai did or moving to a dimension slightly skewed from ours to escape the age of science. I know for a fact that in Ireland Leprechauns use magic to reach human size and live out their lives there while elves and fairies have enclaves around England. America is home to many animal spirits worshiped by the Native Americans, and the Egyptian, Norse, and Greek gods are still forces to be reckoned with if you reach one of their demesne." From there the class revolved to the discussion of classic mythological creatures and which ones were still around in the present day, with Kimiko concentrating on taking as many notes as possible, knowing Naruto would need them to catch up on the classes he missed.

(0o0o0)

Naruto-chan was woken from an afternoon nap by the sound of several people entering the front door of the house. Sitting up from the couch, she saw a sheepish looking Ranma with the rest of the adults minus Inuyasha, with Haruka running towards the bathroom as Hoshiko pointed the way to it. "Hey Naruto, I never thought you'd stay in girl form so long this would happen, I should have warned you since you seemed to not mind your curse as much as I did," said Ranma while rubbing the back of his head.

Naruto-chan giggled at his actions, even as Washu started waving a handheld scanning unit over her body. "Well, you look perfectly fine to me," said the red-haired genius.

Kagome smiled as she placed a bag of herbs in Naruto-chan's hands. "Kaede-san used this herb in a tea for me to help me when I had my first period as a hanyou. Just hope you don't meet a guy stronger than you and you should be able to ignore the worst of the mating urges," she said.

"You think Hinata-chan will let any guys lay a finger on me?" asked Naruto with a raised eyebrow. Everyone suddenly had an image of Hinata castrating a faceless guy with her bare hands while Naruto-chan crouched behind her cheering her on.

"We mainly came over to make sure you weren't going crazy or anything like that," said Ryoko as she ruffled Naruto-chan's hair.

"Ryoko, be nice!" scolded Ayeka before smiling gently at Naruto. "We were quite surprised when Ryeka sent us a text message about what happened during her first break and a bit worried about how you would be holding out mentally."

"I half expected the house to be trashed and look like the NWC went a few rounds inside," said Akane.

"Yeah, that's about how I reacted the first time it happened to me," said Ranma with a rueful smile.

"Well, I have a few advantages over you," said Naruto-chan with a grin. "One, my girlfriend was a major supporter for me. Two, my mother gave me a very in depth Birds and the Bees talk and explained everything about human, hanyou, and youkai life cycles for both sexes since she was a medical genius. Three, as a kitsune I'm used to using a female form, so I just don't feel as weird as a normal guy would."

It was at this moment that Haruka came back into the room, having finished her business in the bathroom. She immediately jumped onto the couch beside Naruto-chan and sniffed her. "Naruto-nee-san, you smell like you're bleeding!" she screeched. Somehow, she pulled a medical kit out of nowhere and a nurse hat. "Let the lovely nurse Haruka-chan make you feel better!" declared the girl as she pulled a large roll of bandages from the kit.

(0o0o0)

When Hinata arrived back at the house with the rest of the gang, she started giggling at the sight of a mummified Naruto-chan sitting on the couch beside Haruka. Hinata giggled at Naruto-chan's resigned expression, Haruka had clearly used her dreaded Puppy Dog Eyes attack at full power to make the kitsune girl endure the session of playing doctor. As a reward for her patient's good behavior, Haruka allowed Naruto to read the manga she was working on. Though only in elementary school, Haruka was a good artist and everyone believed she would go far in the manga world once she learned more in school about drawing techniques and plot development. Her current skills showed that Shippo had passed on his drawing skills to his youngest sister. Her stories mainly involved some of her parents adventures that had been told to her as bedtime stories.

"Sure, laugh it up, I still remember how you were home sick for your entire first period!" growled Naruto-chan. "And then there was the time you beat down Sakura and Ino at the same time because they teased me about being whipped by you!" Hinata blushed, before reaching over and poking Naruto's breasts.

"Well, I wonder how you got so talented here!" she countered.

"I can't help it if my inherent Vixeness makes me sexy!" shot back Naruto-chan before poking Hinata's own breasts. "And I could ask the same thing about you!" The poking quickly escalated into a tickle war with Haruka joining in.

"At least Naruto is feeling better," said Kimiko as she watched her little sister get tickled by the kitsune's tails.

"I almost feel sorry for the poor idiot who hits on her next!" said Akira with a smirk.

(0o0o0)

The next morning found Naruto heading back to school, though Kimiko had given Hinata a smaller version of the rosary beads her father wore that Naruto wore as a bracelet. The activation word "Come!" would bring Naruto running towards Hinata for a kiss and hug so Hinata could stop her from killing anyone if the kitsune gave into her hormone induced rage. Sadly, Shugo wasn't warranting of this protection when he started flirting with Hinata and earned himself a shinai up the butt, a knee to the groin, and an elbow to the nose before Hinata could blink. Things also went badly when Urd tried to give Naruto a shot to help her, causing the kitsune girl to trash the room as she avoided the bronze skinned chemistry teacher's attempts to stick her with a needle. Naruto-chan ended up hiding behind Belldandy, who actually frowned at her older sister's behavior. The biggest bit of trouble from school came during PE, Naruto was forced by Inuyasha to use the girls' locker room and the normal girls weren't too happy with the situation. It took Kimiko and Hinata together to drag Naruto-chan into the room to change and it was only when the fox girl broke down in tears from the stares she was getting that the other girls felt sorry for her and brought themselves to comfort her and telling Inuyasha that he could respectively 'Go get a sex change and see how he liked it!' when he poked his head in to find out what was taking them so long. That day ended with Inuyasha being hit with so many lasers that he was forced to take off his vest when it started smoking since the girls of both teams decreed a cease-fire to target him for being an 'Insensitive male with no respect for girls' and the boys wisely kept out of the way of the girls.

(0o0o0)

Murphy's law can be interpreted as "Even after things start getting better, they can still get worse," as Naruto found out when a giant flying minotaur with tentacles on its back landed in the middle of the Furinkan courtyard two days later during lunch. Ranko, Miyuki, and Akira all groaned.

"Great, it's Pantyhose..." muttered Ranko.

"Who?" asked Naruto, not sure she'd heard right.

"His name is Pantyhose Taro... Happosai named him... and bathed him in the Niuhomanmaorennichuan (spring of drowned yeti holding an eel and crane while riding an ox)," explained Akira.

"Where do the tentacles come from?" asked Ryeka.

"He took a bath in the spring of drowned octopus," said Miyuki with a frown.

Hinata's eye twitched as she asked, "How does an octopus drown?"

"I don't know, but his main beef is with Happosai and trying to get him to change his name... so why is he here?" muttered Akira.

At that moment, the chimera spotted them and the giant creature stomped towards them. To the surprise of the Saotome children, the chimera opened its mouth and growled out, "Where's Uzumaki Naruto? The old freak sent me a letter saying if I beat up Uzumaki he would change my name!"

"I'm going to kill Happosai!" muttered Naruto-chan.

"How the hell can you talk now?" demanded Akira.

"Spring of drowned loudmouth, not so tragic tale of a very talkative man who got held underwater until he drowned," said Taro before fixing on Naruto. "Happosai did say the Uzumaki punk was like Femboy and had fox ears and tails, guess that means you're him!"

"Yeah yeah, I'll fight you later asshole, let me finish my lunch in peace!" growled Naruto-chan. Her answer was a giant fist almost crushing her head as Taro reacted with more speed than she thought possible for such a large body. Naruto barely managed to leap clear, cursing mentally since she was in a school uniform and not a kunoichi outfit. The rest of the group scattered as the tree they had been sitting under was destroyed. Naruto rapidly formed hand seals and yelled, "Kitsune Hijutsu: Omeshi Kawari (Fox secret art: Clothing Alteration)!" to change her school uniform to a kunoichi outfit she could fight in. Hinata activated the seal Hoshiko had sewn into all of her outfits, causing a similar change while Ryeka's uniform shifted to a battle suit similar to Ryoko's red and black fighting gear. Akira, Miyuki, Ranko, and Kimiko didn't have the benefit of transforming clothes, but they had to ignore that as Taro lashed out at Naruto with his tentacles. The kitsune girl wove through the thrusting appendages before Nenshousaiga flashed. Taro bellowed as all eight of his tentacles were sliced off before glaring at Naruto. Everyone stared as the stumps of the tentacles started to twitch and regenerate.

"Did you bathe in the spring of drowned lizard too?" gasped Ranko.

"No, octopuses can regenerate lost arms," muttered Ryeka as she slashed one of the severed tentacles in half as it leaped at her. "The cast off tentacles can also move for a short time so be on your guard!"

Miyuki had managed to get some distance from Taro and was gathering her ki in her hands. A glowing white sphere quickly formed and grew in her hands before she wound up like she was about to throw a fast ball. Miyuki yelled, "Kamite Ougi (Godhand Succession Move): Wild Pitch!" before pitching the ki blast at Taro. The chimera snorted and the small wings on his back started flapping, amazingly lifting him into the air and clear of the attack.

"You missed, runt!" bellowed Taro, only to see the infamous Saotome smirk appear on Miyuki's face.

Behind Taro, Akira had been gathering his own ki and shaping it into a baseball bat, which he swung at the ki blast with a cry of, "Kamite Ougi: Home Run God!" the ki blast was sent into the air with Akira's Ki added to the mix and smashing into Taro, who dropped to the ground from the shock of the impact. A shadow above him alerted him to a presence above him.

Ranko, covered in a phoenix aura, yelled out, "Hou'ou Tenku (Phoenix Heaven Drive)!" before bringing her shinai down on Taro's head. Normally Taro would shrug off a hit from a shinai, but the aura protecting Ranko allowed her blow to have enough power to make Taro see stars.

Knowing that the behemoth was only stunned for a short time, Kimiko delivered a flying kick to Taro's head before bringing her claws down with a cry of, "Sankon Tessō (Iron Reaver Soul Stealer)!" Taro bellowed as five slashes appeared on his chest, though his thick hide protected him from any real damage and the attack only caused him to sink to one knee.

As Naruto tried to take advantage of Taro's lowered state, she leapt into the air with a cry of "Enokorogusa Tsuchi (Fox Tail Hammer)!" only to have Taro grab a tree and block the blow before his free hand shoot towards her and sprayed a jet of ink that blinded the kitsune girl, while Nenshousaiga went flying from her hand due to the ink making her loose her grip.

Hinata appeared in front of Taro as the Minotaur gasped for breath, her body set in the Jyuuken stance. "You're in range of my divination!" yelled Hinata before lashing out with her hands and a cry of "Hakurō Tenbu (White Haze Dance)!" as her hands covered in white light. However, the attack was blocked by Taro's massive arms before he backhanded Hinata, sending her crashing into the wall of the school just as Naruto used a minor Suiton jutsu to clean her eyes. The sight that greeted the kitsune was Hinata slumping on the ground with her head at an angle implying a broken neck.

"Hinata!" cried Naruto, before she turned to Taro with her eyes turning red. "You're going to regret that, you bastard!" she roared. At that point, something inside Naruto just snapped. If Hinata had been conscious, her Byakugan could have seen a flare of light inside Naruto's head similar to one seen when Lee or Gai opened the first gate for their Lotus attacks. As a red youki aura surrounded Naruto, her eyes turned red and Taro began to realize he was in way over his head. This was confirmed when Naruto disappeared and Taro felt a massive blow to his chin that actually lifted his tremendous bulk into the air. From there everything became a blur of red and gold as Naruto blurred around him, landing powerful punishing blows each time she materialized. His tentacles couldn't catch her and the minotaur realized he was getting higher and higher into the air from the force of the uppercuts Naruto kept landing to his head. Once they were high enough for the kitsune, she appeared behind Taro and latched on to him with her arms, legs, and tails so she pinned his wings to his back before twisting so they were both plunging towards the ground head first while spinning. "Omote Renge (Primary Lotus)!" roared Naruto as Taro, due to his massive bulk, crashed into the ground first, thus avoiding the problem Lee and Gai had to deal with of leaping clear of the impact. Sure, Naruto felt the strain of the technique, but she wasn't forced to leap clear at the last minute fighting her inertia. As Naruto leapt into the air, ready to plunge down on the unconscious Taro and rip him apart, she suddenly found herself stuck in mid air. Snarling, the kitsune used her tails as leverage to twist herself around and spotted Ryeka holding a large gun with three prongs around the end. The gun gave off an orange glow and was connected by a thick cable to a futuristic metal backpack Ryeka wore.

"Somebody calm her down before she breaks free!" yelled the cyan haired girl, "I can't hold her for long!"

"NARUTO, COME!" was the only thing everyone heard before the kitsune girl blurred from sight. However, a muffled OOPH from by the wall alerted everyone to the blonde's new location as she was cleaning Hinata's tonsils. Everyone could only stare as the lip lock continued until Naruto suddenly slumped over, a panting Hinata raising her hand from the base of the kitsune's neck. "Woah, never been kissed that long before," muttered the Hyuuga heiress.

At that moment, Jiraiya appeared in a burst of leaves, his eyes darting around the school yard before landing on Hinata and the unconscious Naruto. "Hinata, what happened? I was running some errands on the other side of town and felt Naruto's chakra spike!" demanded the Gama-Sennin.

"That weird flying tentacle minotaur named Pantyhose Taro came after Naruto-kun because Happosai said he would change Taro's name if he beat Naruto-kun!" explained Hinata as she stroked Naruto's head. "I hit the wall and blacked out for a moment, Naruto must have thought I was dead and went berserk."

Jiraiya's eyes narrowed and the students watching staggered as his killing intent briefly lashed out before focusing on Taro, who had staggered to his hands and knees. It was at that moment that most of the teachers ran out of the school building, silently cursing that the teacher's lounge was in the back and top of the school and causing them to have not gotten there in time to prevent the chaos that had engulfed the lunch period. "You're in for a world of pain now you freak show!" said Jiraiya as he cracked his knuckles. Taro's response was a haymaker punch that seemed to pass right through Jiraiya as the Gama-Sennin moved at speeds too fast for most people to see. Taro found his tentacles tied together in a painful knot and a smirking Jiraiya in front of him. "Gamayudan (Toad Oil Bullet)!" yelled Jiraiya before his cheeks bulged and he spat a giant ball of oil out of his mouth at Taro that covered the Minotaur in seconds. Taro bellowed in outrage and tried to gorge Jiraiya with his horns, only to have the ninja easily twist aside, bite his thumb, and slam his hand into the ground with a cry of "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" The giant cloud of smoke was quickly dispelled to reveal Gamabunta glaring down at Taro. The students and teachers gaped at the giant toad as he rolled his eyes up to see Jiraiya on his head.

"Jiraiya, why have you summoned me to face this pipsqueak?" growled Gamabunta.

"Well boss, this freakshow apparently attacked Naruto and his friends, Naruto thought Hinata was killed by an impact against the wall and used the Primary Lotus on Cowman. I've soaked him in oil and I know how much you like barbeque, so how about a snack?" said Jiraiya as he formed the tiger seal.

"Hmm, some fresh cooked beef does sound good," said Gamabunta as he flicked his tongue over his lips slightly. Jiraiya grinned as Taro's wide eyes rolled up in back of his head as the minotaur passed out while foaming at the mouth.

"Thanks, Bunta, I figured facing someone so much bigger than him would put him in his place easy," said Jiraiya. "I'll summon one of your kids when we know for sure how Naruto is and I'll also send you some sake for calling you out here without a big battle."

"Hmmm, forget the sake this time, I'm happy to get the chance to avenge my henchman. Tell Naruto that Gamakichi wants to practice with him soon!" said Gamabunta before he disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Jiraiya to drop to the ground.

Jiraiya sighed before picking up the unconscious Naruto. "Somebody show me where the nurse's office is?" he asked. Hinata quickly got to her feet and led the way, with Hotaru rushing to check Naruto's vitals as they got the kitsune to the office.

(0o0o0)

It turned out that Naruto mainly needed rest, the strain of opening the Kaimon (Gate of Opening) by accident combined with being drained by Hinata's knockout strike to the back of the neck had left the kitsune unconscious and in need of a good long nap. Jiraiya quickly brought her to the house via Shunshin, were Hoshiko immediately started mixing herbs for a chakra restoring potion and a general health potion. Hinata was upset she wasn't allowed to go home to help, but Jiraiya assured her he would send Gishou if she was needed. Hinata was distracted for the rest of the day and brutally beat Shugo until he was unconscious when he startled her from behind.

(0o0o0)

Hinata was dozing lightly in Naruto's room that evening as she watched over the blonde kitsune, only to be woken from her doze by a groan. Jerking upright, the Hyuuga heiress's gaze locked onto Naruto, before she launched herself from the chair onto the kitsune girl. "Don't ever do that again!" she sobbed as she hugged Naruto.

"Do what?" asked the confused kitsune.

"Open the Hachimon (Eight Gates)! Even though you're a hanyou the gates put an incredible strain on your body and there's no telling what kind of effect that could have on you!" gasped Hinata.

Naruto's face fell at this as she sheepishly rubbed her head while saying, "I think I've already figured out one side effect."

"What?" asked Hinata, "I didn't find anything wrong with you from a diagnostic jutsu."

"I'm not exactly Naruto… he's banging his head against a wall inside our head," said the kitsune. "You can call me Naruko, I'm apparently the result of a massive fusion of youkai, vixen instincts, and human chakra." Hinata did what an normal girl would do when being told their boyfriend had gained a female alternate self would do after all she had been through that day. The Hyuuga heiress fainted. She woke up seconds later to a worried Naruko looking down at her. "I'm sorry Hinata-chan, I should have broken it to you more gently," said the kitsune sadly.

"I'm going to need some time to get used to this," muttered Hinata before sighing. "Do the others know about you?" she asked.

"No, I haven't left the room yet," said Naruko.

Hinata rubbed her head to ease her headache before saying, "Come on, we'll go talk to the adults about this," and leading Naruko out of the room.

(0o0o0)

"Fascinating," said Washu as she ran a device over Naruko's head. "I can actually detect the different thought patterns in your head! And there's a link between the two of you!"

"Yeah, Naruto hears everything I hear, sees everything I see, and tastes everything I taste!" said Naruko. "And he says he hopes you can find a way to split us apart Washu, since relaying everything he says is annoying to both of us!"

"I'll try Naruko, maybe a Masu body would work, but I'm not a hundred percent sure," said Washu with a frown as she tapped at her laptop.

"You don't have to rush, Naruto and I can deal with sharing our body, Naruto is currently exploring our mind and seeing if he can find any childhood memories to blackmail Sasuke with when we return to Konoha," said Naruko with a kitsune grin that suddenly changed to a look of horror. "Seal us up!" she gasped before a malevolent aura sprang up around her body. Acting quickly, Hinata, Kimiko, and Kagome all thrust their hands forward, each one generating a wall of purifying energy around the kitsune girl. The three walls formed a pyramid, keeping the angry energy from lashing out at everyone.

(0o0o0)

Naruko grimaced as she found herself in the wrecked remains of Konoha's forest that made up the outer part of the mind she shared with Naruto. Normally the forest was in a primal state that reflected Naruto's hanyou nature, but it was undamaged. Now, many of the trees bore claw and burn marks while the distinctive signs of a Rasengan dotted the landscape. Rushing through the devastation, Naruko finally found her other self panting while facing a gigantic black nine tailed fox. "What the heck is that?" demanded Naruko as she paused on a branch above the two combatants.

"Near as I can tell, it's the pure primal rage we felt when we thought Hinata-chan was dead," said Naruto grimly. "And it won't calm down no matter what I do!"

"Double team it?" asked Naruko as she landed beside Naruto. Naruto nodded and both of the kitsune hanyou leapt into the air before twisting their arms back behind them.

"Gatsūga (Double Piercing Fang)!" yelled the twins as they mimicked the Inuzuka clan's technique. Naruto had seen the move done enough times by Kiba that he got the principles down, but since Gishou wasn't strong enough to use the technique effectively for long, they had never used it in combat. However, with Naruko's 'birth', Naruto was finally able to use the technique to its full potential. The twin kitsune started tearing into the dark kitsune, the double attack making it harder for the monster to heal the damage rapidly. A lucky blow from the dark kitsune's tail sent Naruto crashing to the ground, where a giant black paw pinned him. Naruko came out of her own spin and landed on a tree, springing towards the leg that had Naruto pinned with a Rasengan in her hand. At the same time, Naruto suddenly had Nenshousaiga in his hand and dug it into the paw, causing the dark kitsune to yelp. That brief distraction allowed Naruko's attack to connect. The dark kitsune's paw was blasted off by the Rasengan, allowing Naruto to leap clear. The black fox snarled, only for a giant seal to appear around it and transform into a cage made of trees, much to the surprise of Naruto and Naruko, though once giant statues of toads appeared at the front of the cage they figured out that Jiraiya had done something.

"Go ask Ero-Sennin what's going on, I'll watch over the bastard," said Naruto. Naruko nodded, closing her eyes and focusing on returning to her conscious self.

(0o0o0)

Kagome asking, "Can you teach me how to do that?" was the first thing Naruko heard when she regained consciousness. The toad sage's seal work had really impressed the hanyou miko since it had taken all of her concentration as well as Kimiko and Hinata's to keep Naruto and Naruko from being purified away.

"Maybe, at the very least I can help you design some new ofuda to use on youkai that will let you subdue them rather than purify them to dust," said Jiraiya. "It looks like the seal worked, the princess is awake!"

"Call me princess again and I'll cram all your research notes down your throat!" growled Naruko. "I may be a female version of Naruto but I'm a tomboy through and through! If any body is a princess, it's Hinata-chan!" Hinata immediately blushed, while she was used to Naruto praising her, hearing it from Naruko was a slightly new experience.

"Alright, Naruko, tell me what happened," said Washu. As Naruko told everyone about the dark kitsune, Inuyasha stiffened at his place against the wall.

"I've got a feeling I know what's going on. Like when Tessaiga broke and my youkai side was unleashed, this was the first time your youkai was completely unleashed. You haven't been wearing your Hitai-ate at school, plus that sudden impact with the tree had a lot of force behind it, look at Nenshousaiga!" said the silver haired hanyou as he drew Naruto's sword from its sheath and pointed to a crack in the blade. "You didn't completely lose your mind, but we're going to need Tōtōsai to re-forge the sword. While he's doing that, I'm taking you to a new teacher who will help you learn to control your emotions enough that your rage won't escape."

"Who is it?" asked Naruko.

"My brother Sesshomaru, Daiyōkai of the Western Lands," said Inuyasha.

**And that's a wrap. Next up, intense training from Sesshomaru.**


	6. Trial 5: Daiyoukai and Yakuza

Note: This chapter's second half causes the story to change to M rating, so be sure you're able to read M rated stories. The lemon at the end has been removed to comply with the site's new adherence to policy.

_Note, my first story, A Dream Is A Wish, was completed before the Inuyasha anime was finished and long before I saw the third Inuyasha movie. Thus, in this universe the Inu no Taisho, Sesshomaru and Inuyasha's dad, didn't die until after Inuyasha was about 12 to 13. Before their father's death, the two half brothers got along like brothers will, not all the time but enough that they weren't trying to kill each other. But then the Inu no Taisho died protecting Inuyasha's mother and Sesshomaru kicked Inuyasha and her out of the Western Lands. They make up in ADIAW, so read that fully to understand all the characters you'll be introduced to in this chapter. The events of the third movie still happened, but before the events of ADIAW._

"Woah," said Naruto as Inuyasha led his family minus Kimiko, Miroku and Sango's family, and Naruto himself towards a massive castle that was even more magnificent than many of the Daimyo mansions Naruto had seen. Since Naruko's period had ended the day after the battle with Pantyhose Taro, Naruto had gratefully resumed control of his body so they could deliver Nenshousaiga to Tōtōsai. The demon smith had taken one of Naruto's fangs to repair the sword but said it would take several days due to the power originally contained in the blade. Since Naruto had his Hitai-ate on, it was safe for him to leave Nenshousaiga in the smith's capable hands while they went to the castle of Inuyasha's brother. Shippo in particular seemed really excited, something Naruto noticed. "Ne, Shippo-senpai, what's got you so excited?" he asked.

"Nii-san's girlfriend is Uncle Fluffy's daughter Rin-nee-san!" chirped Haruka from her place on Inuyasha's back.

"Haruka, stop teasing your brother or I won't let you play with Jaken," said Inuyasha, which made the young hanyou quiet up. She wanted to get in on the Jaken tortu… play time a lot.

As they reached the gates of the wall surrounding the castle, the two inugami guards in front of the gate snapped to attention and called out, "Open for Inuyasha-sama, his family, and guests!" The giant gates opened, revealing a spacious courtyard with many beautiful trees, statues, and fountains decorating it. As guards hurried to inform Sesshomaru of Inuyasha's arrival, a maid led the group to a room they could freshen up in. After a quick wash of their hands and feet, the group followed the maid to the central throne room of the castle. As they entered the throne room, Naruto barely kept himself from staggering at the power he sensed from the occupants of the two thrones beneath a giant statue of an Inu-youkai in its true form that glared down at anyone waiting to speak to the Taiyoukai of the Western Lands on the other side of the room. One was obviously Inuyasha's brother Sesshomaru due to his silver hair and being male. His youki was so strong Naruto could have sworn he was at least at Nibi's level. The woman beside him however had an even stronger holy aura, despite also having a powerful youki aura as well. Her long black hair was in a braid that reached to below her waist and she wore an elaborate robe/kimono with a veil like piece of fabric that seemed to float above her shoulders in an unfelt breeze. Her pointed ears marked her as a pure blood youkai, but the star on her forehead was something Naruto had never seen or heard about before on any of the youkai his mother had described or introduced him to.

"Inuyasha, it's been a while since you last visited us," said the woman with a smile.

"Sorry, Lina, but when I agreed to take over as the physical education teacher at Kimiko's school I gave up most of my free time," said Inuyasha.

"You? A teacher?" asked Sesshomaru with a smirk. "I would think your method of teaching would be to toss the children off a cliff and see who climbs back up!"

Inuyasha snorted as he said, "You think Kagome would let me get away with doing that? While there are some hanyou and other stronger than average humans in the class, most of them are normal kids not suited for such rough stuff. Besides, I seem to recall your mother gave you quite a lecture when you did that to me!"

Sesshomaru blanched at the reminder of that stupid moment of his, especially when he remembered how Lady Izayoi had frowned at him while bandaging her son's bruises. The human princess had always treated him like he was her own flesh and blood, and the disappointment on her face was a better punishment than being lashed with a rod or whip. And his own mother had been just as harsh, scolding the then fifteen hundred year old Sesshomaru like a puppy that had wet the bed.

It was at this moment that a young Inuyoukai woman ran into the room. Naruto saw Shippo grin and hold out his arms, only for the woman to perform a flying glomp that pressed Naruto against her generous figure. "Shippo-kun, I've missed you!" she said with her eyes closed, only to frown as her supposed boyfriend was much too short and struggling to escape her grasp. Opening her eyes, the youkai girl found herself looking a blond haired kitsune hanyou struggling to breathe while an upset looking Shippo stared at her with tears in his eyes. Dropping Naruto, she leapt towards Shippo, hugging him. "Sorry Shippo-kun, I smelled Kitsune and went for it!" she said.

"I think you could tell the difference between a youkai and a hanyou kitsune!" muttered Shippo, crossing his arms to keep Rin from hugging him completely as he turned his back to her.

"I've had a cold, my nose is stuffed up!" explained Rin, pressing herself against Shippo's back while wrapping her arms around him from behind and nuzzling against his neck. Shippo tried to maintain his irritated expression, but his tails started wagging.

"Sister, do you have to act so forward?" asked a young inu youkai who entered the room. The newcomer looked like a chibi version of Sesshomaru with Lina's black hair.

"Isamu-otou, you just wait until you find a cute girl who likes you and see how you feel around her when your instincts take over!" shot back Rin.

The boy snorted, before his glance fell on Naruto. "And how could you mistake this seven tailed runt for your fiancé?" he asked, only to find a kunai blade at his throat.

"Idiot dogs who don't realize that even a seven tailed kitsune hanyou can have some special tricks up their sleeve shouldn't be so arrogant," said Naruto calmly.

Isamu spun around, a whip of poison youki extending from his fingers and lashing out at Naruto, only for the blond kitsune to explode in a cloud of smoke. "Impossible, what kind of technique is that?"

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, a kinjutsu of Konohagakure no Sato, my home village," replied Naruto from where he was standing on the wall looking down at Isamu.

Sesshomaru smirked as he stood up from his throne. "Most impressive for one so young. I take it this is the one you sent word needed my help?" he asked Inuyasha.

"Yep, kid wants to be the leader of his ninja village someday and I figure after you help me get his emotions under control you can help give him some lessons on being the big guy in charge," said Inuyasha.

"Good, follow me boy and we'll see what we have to cover as we tackle the greatest foe ever, paper work," said Sesshomaru before snagging Naruto's collar as the kitsune tried to escape the monster no Kage or Daiyoukai could beat, only to be caught by Sesshomaru's super speed and dragged off to the Daiyoukai's office with tears in his eyes.

"Sesshomaru-sama, it's time for y…" everyone turned to see a small imp carrying a staff topped with two heads entering the throne room, only to freeze as his eyes landed on the smiling Haruka.

"Jaken!" Squealed the youngest hanyou before she bounced off her father's back to tackle the imp before he could escape. "I missed you!" she squealed while squeezing the little imp so hard people could hear a crack from his back. "Let's go play!" she cheered before she ran off, dragging Jaken behind her by his foot, coincidently running towards the stairs that lead to the top floor of the castle and making sure Jaken's head would hit every step on the way.

"Sometimes I wonder if your daughter has two personalities," said Lina with a smile, "That is if she didn't only act like that to Jaken."

"Just don't give her any of those brownies you made for our last visit, food made by a demigoddess turned Daiyoukai makes my daughter bounce off the walls all night!" exclaimed Kagome.

"Or if you do, lock her in the room with the toad," suggested Inuyasha with a grin.

(0o0o0)

"I have to say, this wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," said Naruto as he looked over a previous year's report on rice crops in Sesshomaru's office. The Daiyoukai had taken advantage of Naruto's Kage Bunshin to do most of his paperwork for the month in a day and was now explaining the basics of managing a large domain like the Western Lands or Konoha to the boy. This involved going over the previous year's reports of production by the farmers, merchants, and other people who raised crops and produced goods in Sesshomaru's domain, then calculating taxes, returns, investments, improvements, and other developments based on those figures. If a forest burned down, it had to be replanted and the nearby villages wouldn't have wood for fire, building material, or craft material. A group of bandits halting all travelers on a road, while very stupid to try this in a Daiyoukai's domain, could impact trade between several villages and towns.

"I find your jutsu fascinating," said Sesshomaru with a smirk as he watched the clones tear through the paperwork and reading materials. "To think that humans invented such a powerful technique…"

"Yeah, and that reminds me, Oka-san asked me to give this scroll to you if I ran into you," said Naruto as he fished around in his supply pouch before pulling out a scroll Kyuubi had instructed him to give to the Daiyoukai if they met.

"But isn't this meant for me in your time period? I don't want to risk changing the future if I learn something I shouldn't know" asked Sesshomaru with a small smile.

"D'oh, I hate time travel!" muttered Naruto before he put the scroll back in his pouch.

"Well, any vigorous training will have to wait until you have your blade, I don't want to fight your youkai rage," said Sesshomaru before catching a scent on the breeze coming through the window. "It seems one of my friends has arrived unannounced, but she would be an excellent choice for teaching you some new tricks," said the Daiyoukai as he gestured for Naruto to follow him back to the throne room. "And I smell Kimiko leading what appears to be your friends from the descriptions Inuyasha gave me."

(0o0o0)

As Naruto and Sesshomaru entered the throne room, they found Lina, Kagome, and Sango talking with a nine tailed kitsune woman clad in a figure-hugging kimono who had a small human girl beside her hugging one of her tails. The girl was the first to notice them and lightly tugged on the kitsune's tail, getting her attention directed towards the newcomers as Sesshomaru grinned. "I see you decided to just drop in again like usual Kasei-san," he said.

"Well, I just rescued this little one from some human eating youkai and I figured Lina and Rin could help her get over the trauma of seeing her birth parents eaten," said the kitsune with a smile as she placed a hand on the human girl's head before looking at Sesshomaru. As she did so, her eyes caught sight of Naruto and became hearts. "Why Sesshomaru, who is this handsome young fox with you?" she asked as she sauntered towards the pair with a sway in her hips.

"Uzumaki Naruto…" said Naruto before Kasei reached him.

"I can tell from your clothes that you aren't from around here, how about I show you around and give you a night to remember?" asked Kasei as she ran a hand down Naruto's chest. This close, Naruto was able to see the elaborate katana sticking out of the obi of her kimono. It appeared to have a simple black hilt, but beneath the wrappings Naruto could see five shining gems, red, blue, green, yellow, and white, each with the kanji for one of the five elements engraved beneath it: Fire, Water, Earth, Lightning, and Wind.

'That's Oka-san's sword, Yakiba no Tenshi (Tempered Blade of the Natural Elements), but Oka-san told me she had that sword custom made for her!' thought Naruto before stiffening as Kasei leaned closer to him with her lips ready for a kiss.

At that minute, the halls to Sesshomaru's audience chamber slammed open as if a typhoon had hit them while a blue and white blur smashed into Kasei and knocked her through the wall. "What was that?" asked Lina in shock.

"That would be my pissed off fiancé," said Naruto as he ran towards the hole the blur and Kasei had made to find Hinata putting her speed to the max as she lashed out at Kasei. The vixen was using her superior speed to avoid most of the attacks, but it seemed every time she thought she had outpaced the human the girl would speed up. Finally deciding to put the pest in her place, Kasei leapt into the air while drawing Yakiba no Tenshi.

"Amatsu Kitsune Ryu: Enokorogusa Tsuchi (Heavenly Fox style: Fox Tail Hammer)!" yelled Kasei as she spun in midair, striking with both the blade and her tails at a wide eyed Hinata.

"Amatsu Kitsune Ryu: Odori Kitsune (Heavenly Fox Style: Leaping Fox)!" yelled another voice as another blade met Yakiba no Tenshi. Kasei found herself being shoved back into the air by the force of Naruto's counter and the pressure he exerted on the back of the sword he had grabbed from one of Sesshomaru's guards. The vixen flipped back and assumed a guard stance that Naruto mirrored with his own sword. "I'm warning you, Hinata-chan is my fiancé and I'll tear apart anyone trying to kill her, no matter how many tails they have!" growled Naruto.

"How do you know my sword style?" demanded Kasei, not taking her eyes off Naruto.

"Because five hundred years from now you taught it to me, Oka-san," said Naruto, causing Kasei's eyes to bulge before she fainted.

(0o0o0)

"First lesson I need to teach him: tact," said Sesshomaru as he watched Naruto cause his future mother to faint.

"Yeah, kid has to be as blunt as me," said Inuyasha with a smirk.

Shippo smirked as he said, "Then Sesshomaru has a long road ahead of him!" before jumping away from Inuyasha's reflexive punch.

(0o0o0)

"So let me get this straight," said Kasei after she had been woken up and listened to Naruto's explanation. "Four hundred and eighty seven years from now I'll meet your father, fall in love with him, get married and have you? You grow up and become a ninja, defeat a crazy madman who absorbed the power of that asshole Hachibi, and has an organization out to get the part of my Hoshi no Tama in you so they can use it to control me?" When Naruto and Hinata nodded, the kitsune woman grabbed the bottle of sake on the table and chugged it down. "Great, now we have to worry about screwing up the time line you know about," she said. "This is why I hate time travel and Kami forbids meddling with time. But I can't let my kit go back without doing my best to help him…"

At this moment, a lightning bolt struck the ground outside the castle despite it being a clear day. Everyone hurried outside to find strange marking etched in the ground. "What language is this?" asked Kimiko as she bent over to examine the markings. "It's not Japanese, English, or any other language I've seen."

"That's because it is the language of the gods," said Lina. "It reads, _I KAMI-SAMA, HEARBY GIVE KASEI NO KITSUNE THE AUTHORITY TO TRAIN UZUMAKI NARUTO IN THE ARTS HE NEEDS TO SURVIVE THE TRIALS THAT AWAIT HIM. I ALSO AUTHORIZE MY CHILDREN ON THE MORTAL PLAIN TO MAKE THEIR HERITAGE KNOWN AND OFFER HIM ALL AID THEY CAN_. As you may guess from this, I'm a goddess first-class, unlimited license, as are my mother Belldandy and Aunt Skuld, while my aunt Urd is a Goddess second class, management category limited license. I'm pretty sure that the Almighty has sent them a similar message so they can help you with their powers if need be."

"Well that explains some things," said Hinata, "Like Skuld-sensei's talent with mechanics and Urd-sensei's chemistry skills…"

"Yes, now that you've got grandfather's approval Kasei-san," Lina started to say, only to have the kitsune's eyes widen.

"Your grandfather is Kami-sama?" shrieked the vixen, causing Lina to chuckle.

"Yeah, Oka-san is his daughter, even though my father Keiichi is a mortal in Kimiko's time," said Lina with a grin that often appeared on Naruto's face when he was embarrassed.

(0o0o0)

"All right, time to show me what you've really got, Naruto!" said Kasei as she stood opposite Naruto. Both Kitsune were gripping their blades tightly before exploding into action. Swords, claws, and tails clashed as they became a pair of gold and red blurs crashing together, only solidifying into normal sight when the two clashed together.

"Those two are amazing," said Inuyasha as he washed the clash of the kitsune.

Kagome nodded from where she was brushing the hair of the little girl Kasei had rescued. "Naruto isn't one to hold back, and from what I've seen Kasei isn't either, do you know her, Shippo?"

"Yeah, she's the current princess of the Kitsune clan and the strongest of the nine tailed kitsune currently in existence. Her father is the current Kyuubi no kitsune, though there are rumors he will be stepping down soon and passing the office on to one of his two children, Kasei-hime or her brother Ankoku. Most of us favor Kasei-hime because Ankoku is merciless and has already gained a reputation as a letch that would force all the vixens of the clan to service him."

Any further conversation was cut off as the girl Kasei had rescued gave a gasp of delight, "Kasei-sama is so strong," as Kasei delivered a blow that sent Naruto skidding across the ground.

"That's right, we never got your name," said Kagome.

"It's Mia, are they going to b… eep!" the girl gasped as Naruto charged in and almost slashed Kasei's head off if she hadn't leaned back at the last moment.

"They're getting closer and closer to lethal blows," said Sesshomaru.

To the surprise of the watchers, Kasei suddenly went on the defensive and allowed Naruto to pursue her as they dueled. Akira, Miyuki, and Ranko all began to notice the same thing as Kasei kept avoiding Naruto's attacks. "She's spiraling," muttered Ranko.

"Yeah, could she know…" pondered Miyuki.

Akira shook his head as he said, "No way, dad is the only one who they've taught…"

Any future comments were cut off as Kasei delivered an upwards slash with her katana and yelled, "Hiryū Shōten Ha Kirite (Flying Dragon Ascension Strike Cutter)!" a tornado erupted from beneath Naruto and carried him into the air, while blades of youki and wind sliced into him.

"It's like my Bakuryuuha (Backlash Wave)!" yelled Inuyasha.

"No, it's a Joketsu secret technique that uses the hot ki created by the attacker and the cold ki generated by the defender to create the tornado!" yelled Ranko. "But I've never seen it done with a blade before!"

At that moment, the tornado dissipated and revealed Kasei sheathing her blade and Naruto falling towards the ground. His friends became worried as a red aura appeared around him and they saw his Hitai-ate was blown off in the wind. "Oh hell," gasped Akira before Naruto hit the ground and barreled towards Kasei full tilt. Kasei's eyes widened at Naruto's unexpected speed as the blond kitsune sped past her. The next sound heard was a thud as Naruto tackled Hinata and proceeded to lick her face like a puppy.

Kasei couldn't help but chuckle as she looked at the two and said, "I think sparring is over for now, we'll need to wait until you have your normal blade and find a way to guarantee you don't lose yourself in your youki when we fight."

"I don't know, I kind of like this side of him," said Hinata with a smile as she hugged Naruto, causing his tails to wag. "At least he isn't trying to tear Kasei-san apart."

"Probably because a youkai's scent doesn't change no matter how old they get," said Inuyasha. "Even after fifty years pinned to a tree I still recognized Sesshomaru's scent the first time we met after Kagome released me. So Kasei smells the same way she will after she gives birth to Naruto and thus he recognizes her attacks as sparring or playtime, despite the power behind the attacks."

"Or he could just want to cuddle with Hinata," said Akira with a smirk as Naruto started kissing Hinata with lots of tongue.

The kiss lasted for several seconds before Naruto reluctantly pulled back, leaving a slightly dazed Hinata to grin happily as she said, "My boyfriend is my happy pill. He turns my brain to jell-o," before blushing as her brain caught up with her mouth. This of course caused everyone to burst out laughing, while Naruto only tilted his head to the side, not seeing a problem with the statement since it was true.

(0o0o0)

Later, once everyone had settled down for the night, the girls were having a slumber party in Rin's room. Mia was especially enjoying the feeling of having so many big sisters and the snacks Miyuki, Kimiko, Ryeka, Ranko, and Hinata had brought from modern Japan.

"So, what was kissing Naruto with that youki aura like?" asked Ranko with a grin.

Hinata blushed, but all the girls were smiling at her and she knew from experience with Ino and Sakura that they wouldn't give up until she told them. "It turned me into a puddle of affectionate goo and almost had me gibbering affectionate words and phrases in various languages," she mumbled, her face stained tomato red.

"Maybe I should try kissing Hiryuu like that," Kimiko muttered, only to freeze as she realized what she had said out loud.

"I knew it, you do like him!" squealed Miyuki. "Akira told me how he acted during Naruto's kitsune exam!"

Kimiko's face started to turn red as the girls pounced on the idea of her crushing on her long time friend. She was well known as a tomboy and the other girls seized any chance to tease her about being feminine. It was times like this that Kimiko regretted how her parents had mostly raised her in Feudal Japan until her grandfather has his heart attack and was no longer able to tend to the Higurashi Shrine. Living in Feudal Japan had her used to roughing it to survive and fighting youkai almost every day, not doing the typical girl stuff. This was one of the reasons she liked her friends, they didn't expect her to be like one of the girls in a manga or a girly girl. So she did the only thing she could to shut them up, she grabbed a giant pillow and chucked it at Rin, smashing the inu-youkai girl in the face. Soon a massive pillow fight erupted, with each girl smacking away at the others until the room was full of flying feathers and they were all fast asleep from the fight.

(0o0o0)

Naruto twitched as the sounds of the girls' pillow fight finally stopped, allowing him to get back to sleep. The fight had kept Shippo and him up long after the rest of the guys dropped off thanks to their more sensitive hearing. "At least they weren't telling embarrassing stories or anything," mumbled Naruto, to which Shippo replied with a nod.

(0o0o0)

The next day, Toto-sai arrived around noon with the repaired Nenshousaiga. Naruto was glad to have his sword back and immediately drew it. He noticed the sword seemed a bit heavier, though not as heavy as Inuyasha had mentioned Tessaiga becoming after it was repaired. When he mentioned this to Toto-sai, the demon smith said, "You're closer in power to your mother than Inuyasha was to his father, so there isn't as much of a weight difference."

"But to get it back to normal I have to become stronger than Oka-san, right?" asked Naruto.

"Possibly, but with kitsune I wouldn't be too sure since your species can be very tricky. The sword might have a mind of its own and test you first," said Toto-sai with a shrug.

Kasei now stepped forward and asked, "Toto-sai, can you use one of my fangs to make a locking item for Naruto's power that can't be lost as easily as his sword or Hitai-ate?"

Toto-sai shook his head and said, "Nope, you haven't physically had him yet, so your fang at this time wouldn't work. Giving birth changes the frequency of a female youkai's power just enough that I wouldn't be able to sync a talisman made from your fangs with Naruto. Now if I had a few fangs from your form after you gave birth to Naruto it would be easy, a simple pair of armguards would do."

"Figures it wouldn't be so easy," muttered Naruto before grinning at Kasei. "Well, we can still spar now with me going all out." Kasei's answering smirk had everyone feeling nervous as they walked towards the training ground meant for Inuyasha and Sesshomaru's personal sparring where the watchers could stand in a slightly elevated section much like that provided to the participants in the Konoha Chunin Exam arena while the walls were specially designed to resist the powerful attacks Inuyasha and Sesshomaru could produce.

(0o0o0)

"Kami-sama, they're unbelievable!" gasped Ranko as she watched Naruto and Kasei come together again and again as Nenshousaiga met Yakiba no Tenshi. The two blades seemed to sing as they clashed, their wielders performing every move in the Amatsu Kitsune Ryu.

"Yeah," said Inuyasha, glancing at his brother, who smirked. The two inu-youkai suddenly drew their own blades and leapt into the fray. The four way match was even more intense as Inuyasha unleashed his Kaze no Kizu (Wind Scar) and Sesshomaru unleashed his Sōryūha (Dragon Strike) from Tokijin. Kasei finally managed to almost corner Naruto, only to have to dodge a giant fox fire ball that kept going towards Inuyasha. The inu-hanyou instinctively swung Tessaiga at the attack with a cry of, "Bakuryuuha (Backlash Wave)!" Inuyasha's jaw dropped in horror as the Kaze no Kizu wrapped around the giant fox fire ball and turned it into a giant tornado that went right towards the surprised Naruto. Sesshomaru, seeing the young kitsune hanyou was caught off guard, launched a Sōryūha to try to blast away the Bakuryuuha. What happened next surprised everyone.

The two attacks merged into one giant electric tornado tearing towards the kitsune boy. Kasei's eyes widened as she started to dive forward to save Naruto, only to see him sheathe Nenshousaiga and hold both his hands in front of him as if pushing against a wall. Fire began to swirl in Naruto's right hand before forming a sphere, while a sphere of white and blue wind blades formed in his left. "Katon: Rasengan and Fūton: Rasengan!" roared Naruto just before the tornado crashed into him. To the amazement of Inuyasha and Sesshomaru, the wind of the combined attack was sucked into the flame attack while the wind attack sliced through the electricity. As the attack dissipated, Naruto's face suddenly shifted from focus to panic as the two Rasengan in his hands started to vibrate. "I can't control 'em!" he yelled just before the two orbs merged together and unleashed a blazing tornado that thankfully didn't go beyond the training yard thanks to its thick walls. Naruto was at the center of the fire storm and thus unscathed, but the sheathes of Tessaiga and Tenseiga both put up a shield to protect their wielders, while Kasei simply used her tails to create a fox fire shield for herself. In the viewing area, Hinata, Kimiko, and Kagome instantly each put up a barrier to protect the entire group, while Lina started chanting and created a wall of water behind the barriers to dampen the heat with a wave of her hand. The biggest surprise was Ryeka. Her hands had snapped up and a barrier composed of floating logs had appeared in front of the three miko barriers, and in front of it was what looked like seven shapes made of light appeared just before the attacked reached their position. The three miko were surprised to find that none of the energy seemed to touch their barriers, but Ryeka collapsed as soon as the attack died down, causing everyone to panic and swarm around her.

(0o0o0)

Ryeka slowly became aware of a frantic Miyah from Ren-oh-ki. "Ren, stop it, go ask dad to give you a fresh picked carrot," muttered the cyan haired girl as she turned over and snuggled into her covers. There was quiet for a minute before Ryeka felt a small furry body wiggling under the covers before a cold cabbit nose was pressed against the small of her back. With a yelp, Ryeka leapt to the ceiling, using her power to hover out of range of her pet's nose. "REN, you'd better run or I'm going to be having some lucky Cabbit feet!" yelled Ryeka as she dove towards her pet. The little Cabbit ran for her life as Ryeka chased after her. It was only when she crashed into her mother's force field and realized she was back home that recent events caught up with the genius. "Wasn't I just watching Naruto, Kasei-san, Inuyasha-sensei, and Sesshomaru-sama spar in feudal Japan?" she asked.

Ryoko raised one eyebrow as she floated up to her daughter's eye level and said, "That was two days ago, your friend described you using the Jurai shield combined with seven Kou Ou Yoku (Light Hawk Wings) at once. You crashed afterwards and Inuyasha rushed you back here. Mom said you just needed to rest, apparently using both sets of power at the same time drains your energy twice as fast, not to mention this was the first time you've used the Kou Ou Yoku."

"Yeah, when I first used them I fainted soon afterwards," said Tenchi as he smiled at his daughter. "The important thing is you instinctively used the Kou Ou Yoku to protect your friends. I'll start teaching you how to use matter conversion to create Light Hawk armor and the Light Hawk Sword." Ryeka grinned, only to glare at Tenchi's next words. "And no, you may not use the Light Hawk Sword and film yourself using 'a real lightsaber I made myself' for the Star Wars Physics forum I know you frequent!"

"I would never do that!" gasped Ryeka with a shocked look appearing on her face.

Washu chuckled as she started waving a scanner over her granddaughter. "We know you wouldn't, Ryeka, but take it from The Greatest Scientific Genius in the universe that the temptation to brag when you accomplish something everyone else thought was impossible is very strong," said the red head before her eyes flicked over the readings she had taken. "Well, you'll be going back to school tomorrow; your friends said they'd get notes for you, so you can relax for the rest of the day."

(0o0o0)

"Naruto, come in here," said Jiraiya as the kitsune boy exited the bathroom.

"What's up, Ero-Sennin? I've been training non stop since Taro-teme came around and I need my sleep!" growled Naruto.

Jiraiya's stern expression quieted any further arguments from Naruto and the fox boy meekly followed the Sennin into his room. There, Jiraiya slammed his hands to the ground and two small clouds of smoke appeared before clearing away to reveal two small toad elders dressed in robes. "Naruto meet Fukasaku and Shima, they're the elders of Myobokuzan and they'll be training you in Senjutsu (Hermit Techniques) that you'll need to beat Akatsuki. Also, the training should help tame your youkai side," said Jiraiya as Naruto stared at the two small toads.

(0o0o0)

With first Naruto and now Ryeka having to take a few days off from classes, the whole school was watching Akira, Ranko, Miyuki, Kimiko, and Hinata to see if they would be the next one to suffer an accident. Miyuki was the next one when she crashed into a group of gardening club members carrying trays of catnip. The end result was one hyper active cat girl bouncing around the school and meowing loudly. It took Naruto and Kimiko to hold her down long enough for Akira to pour hot water on her and make the catnip lose its effect. The end result was a school-wide ban on catnip and several students covered in light scratches that kept Hotaru and her medical class busy for the rest of the day thanks to Miyuki's claws.

(0o0o0)

It was the day after the catnip incident that Naruto found an ornate envelope addressed to him when he returned home from school. "Hoshiko, any idea who this is from?" he asked as he showed it to the house keeper.

"No, Naruto-san, it was here when I got back from the market," said the kitsune.

"Hinata, can you check for any seals on the inside?" asked Naruto. The Hyuuga heiress nodded and activated her Byakugan.

"No seals, Naruto-kun," she said after deactivating her Kekkei Genkai. Naruto nodded and opened the letter before scowling at what he read. "What's wrong Naruto?" she asked.

"Some big shot nine tails just got back to Japan after a long trip and heard I was here. Basically, kitsune custom forces me to go see any kitsune of eight or more tails that requests an audience with me if I'm not vitally involved with something at the moment. Since training doesn't count, I'm going to have to visit this Kuroten (Sable) for dinner tonight. She'll be sending a car, she's apparently a big shot in the human world and lives in a mansion outside Tokyo where she doesn't have to deal with as much pollution," explained Naruto. "Ugh, I hate formal things like this, and I can bet you I'll be splashed by water at some point, so I'll have to wear something that looks good on both Naruko and myself." Shaking his head, Naruto turned to Gishou and Hoshiko. "Either of you heard of this Kuroten before?" he asked.

"I haven't, but then I've been living with you for the last eleven years," said Gishou.

"I've mostly stayed in Kyuubi-sama's realm, keeping her den tidy and not socializing except with my friends," said the kitsune house keeper.

"Great, better call Shippou-senpai, I need all the info I can get!" muttered Naruto as he went to the phone.

(0o0o0)

"I can do this!" muttered Naruto as he stepped out of the limousine Kuroten had sent for him with Gishou at his heels. Naruto was clad in a kimono that mimicked his father's famous flame coat, something that was simple but looked good on both Naruko and him. He did have his Hitai-ate on underneath the green obi that tied the kimono shut, preventing him from losing control if things got crazy.

Naruto gulped as the door to the mansion opened to reveal a vixen worthy of the name Sable. She had gorgeous black hair that fell down her back in a waterfall of shadow and covered the right half of her face, while her dress was a clingy black evening gown with sparkles that highlighted every curve on her body and showed that like most female kitsune, she had a figure that would have guys gaga over her and following her every order. She had a pair of dark purple opera gloves gracing her arms, with some slim bracelets over them. Naruto caught a glimpse of dusky skin though the slit up the thigh of the dress and a pair of dark blue heels on top of black lace stockings. (Basically, think Jessica Rabbit only everything red is black)

"Naruto-sama, you honor my home with your presence," she said before bowing, giving Naruto a good glimpse of her cleavage.

"Kuroten-sama, thank you for inviting me to your home," said Naruto as he returned the bow before following her inside. As his hostess led him though the house, Naruto noticed many framed movie posters that seemed to feature her as one of the major characters of the movie, but Naruto didn't recognize any of them. "You're an actress as well as a model, Kuroten-sama?" asked Naruto, gesturing to one of the posters.

"Yes, they're pretty much the same thing, get dressed, pose pretty or say some lines, do a few takes to get everything right, and then you're done and off to the next scene or shoot. I've just gotten back from a photo-shoot, movie, photo-shoot rush, so I apologize for not contacting you sooner," said Kuroten.

"That's ok, I understand how busy life can be when you have many responsibilities," replied Naruto with a smile as they entered a dimly lit dining room.

Kuroten smiled before gesturing to the small table set for two with a pair of candles in the center. A cute bunny youkai dressed in a waitress costume was standing by the table with what appeared to be two menus in her hands. "I find it easier to have my chef prepare a menu on what he can make each evening based on the quality of his current stock, most nights I just want something simple and the menu tells me what is available," said Kuroten as she took her seat before reaching for the menu.

The waitress smiled at Naruto and handed him his menu, which to his delight was filled with relatively simple fare, he hated fancy foods and all things gourmet because they demanded etiquette, something nobody could pound into his head, not even his mother or Hinata, besides basic manners. "I'll have the Pork Shabu Shabu," said the fox boy, "And a bowl of ground turkey for Gishou. Don't give me that look, pal, you need to watch your fat intake, I've seen you gaining weight since we came here and stopped doing missions full time!" Gishou frowned while Kuroten chuckled, having ordered a large steak dinner with a baked potato, salad, and a milkshake. "Isn't that a bit much to eat with the figure you have to keep?" asked Naruto.

"Between shoots I can eat what I want, when I'm on set I have to diet like crazy so the costumes and outfits always fit. I get a good workout every day I'm not on set though, so I don't gain weight," replied the vixen. "And after the hectic schedule my agent put me through I deserve these treats!"

"No arguments here, whenever I get a chance to go on a ramen binge at Ichiraku ramen stand I do it," said Naruto.

Kuroten chuckled and asked, "Could you tell me of life in the elemental countries? I've been away for the last century and I'm not up to date on most things."

Naruto gladly began telling her the basics of the elemental nations, including his team's mission to Wave country, though he caught an odd glint in her eye at that part, the invasion by Sand and Sound, followed by the one day war with Sound, and finally his training here in Japan. By that time the waitress was bringing out a desert cart, only to have Kuroten say, "We'll have the dessert out in the garden; it's cooled down nicely by now!"

(0o0o0)

Kuroten's garden was quite the spectacle, with fountains everywhere and many statures. Naruto noticed that many of them were of beautiful women, some in very scanty clothing. Kuroten led Naruto to a small arbor that had a romantic view of her garden's central pond where a small table was being set for two. After the two had a seat, they read the menu and Naruto settled for a bowl of fresh strawberry ice cream while Kuroten had a chocolate mousse sundae. As they were finishing up the treats, Naruto had to adjust his kimono, he was still feeling hot. He idly noticed Gishou curling up at the base of the table and falling asleep.

"I find it fascinating that you've grown up to be such a successful ninja," said Kuroten as she smiled at Naruto while slowly inching towards him. "I was never that skilled in most of the kitsune tricks, my power mainly stems from the fact I outmaneuver my opponents to my advantage from behind the scenes. My expertise is in the more… intimate… aspects of the body." At this point, Kuroten was right next to Naruto and pressed her silk covered fingers lightly against his chest. Naruto's face turned beet red as his eyes took on the look of a deer staring into the headlights of an onrushing car.

"Uhhh, I've got a fiancée I really REALLY love!" stammered Naruto as he started to scoot away from his hostess.

"Maybe, but I can guarantee I know tricks she's never even dreamed of!" said Kuroten huskily, now pressing herself against Naruto's front. Naruto's panicked Kawarimi to escape the situation ended up with Kuroten grasping a frog and Naruto splashing into the pond and transforming into Naruko. "No man refuses me!" growled Kuroten as she leapt towards Naruko. The blonde kitsune hurriedly made a break towards the shore, grabbing Gishou from the arbor at the cost of a gash down her arm and bolting towards the mansion, avoiding the guards who suddenly appeared to catch her, only to have two small darts connected to wires hit her. Electricity shot down the lines and Naruko screamed as the voltage ripped through her, sending her into unconsciousness as she fell face first into the edge of the pond. Kuroten snarled as she brushed her soaked hair out of her face, "Bring the little princess to my playroom, I'll be there as soon as I've changed!" Nobody noticed a small orange toad slowly rise out of the area beneath where Naruko had fallen.

(0o0o0)

Hinata jerked as if she had been smacked, feeling a phantom pain. "Naruto-kun," she muttered.

"Relax, Hinata, he's probably getting ready to come home soon," said Miyuki. The teens were hanging at the Uzumaki home, waiting for Naruto to get back. Hoshiko had gone out with a few of her friends from the neighborhood while Jiraiya was out speaking with his editor in Japan, making this a good night for all of Naruto's friends to get together and relax.

Hinata sighed as she said, "Yes, I know that, Miyuki-chan, but chaos seems to surround Naruto-kun all the time!"

"Even more than Ni-san!" said Ranko with a grin as she took a bite of some chocolate pocky.

All fun and games were put on halt as a dog sized orange toad with a blue jacket appeared in the center of the room with an accompanying cloud of smoke. "Gamakichi, what's wrong?" gasped Hinata.

"Naruto has been captured, he managed to use an injury he got to provide the blood to summon me underwater and his captors missed me!" gasped the little toad.

"I'm calling dad!" yelled Kimiko and Ryeka at the same time as they whipped out their cell phones. Akira was already racing out the door to inform Ranma and Akane, while Hinata quickly ran to her room and pulled out her shinobi gear (picture Tifa's outfit from Advent Children with ANBU armor). The all-black top and shorts allowed her plenty of movement, while the forearm and leg protectors would give her some protection. As Hinata ran to the front of the house, she saw Ryeka fiddling with her holographic laptop. "Ride coming up in five seconds," said the cyan haired girl before hitting a final key and grinning. There was a whump sound of displaced air as a giant UNSC Pelican appeared. The Cyan haired girl threw herself into the pilot's seat, grabbing Kimiko as her copilot. The rest of the kids, including a panting Akira, hopped into the back seats and strapped themselves in as the Pelican lifted off. Ryeka entered the address of the letter Naruto had received and as soon as her computer found a match they were off, leaving a note for their parents to find, which Ranma did as he burst around the corner just in time to see the ship lift off.

(0o0o0)

The sound of a cell phone going off interrupted the romantic movie a couple was watching. The male of the pair grumbled as he reached for the phone and hit the talk button. "Yes? You're serious commander? And they went after him without waiting for adult help? Ugh, Uzumaki seems to always ruin my private time with my girl. At least we've got the evidence to go in and bust the bitch up, we've been trying to get into that place for years! Round up the team and I'll meet you at the base." Hanging up the phone, he turned to his girlfriend and said, "Sorry, dear, but it appears Naruto has once again bitten off more than he can chew. I'm going to have to lead the boys in and bust him out."

The girl appeared amused by this as she reached for something in her pocket. "Then we'd better go help him out, that is his friends don't beat us to it! One good thing about being your fiancé is I can tag along on these little adventurers."

"Wouldn't try to keep you away," answered the man as he opened a dresser containing a katana and an armored combat suit with a JGSD (Japanese Ground Self Defense Force) badge on the shoulder.

(0o0o0)

Naruko regained consciousness to find herself in a torture room that looked perfect for Anko to use to break captured enemy kunoichi. She was currently strapped to a giant metal ring that kept her arms and legs apart while her tails tingled with the sensation of a local anesthetic. And her muscles, she discovered, were dead to her commands. Chakra was sluggish but there, youki gone to a point she was surprised she had her ears and tails. The thing that really had Naruko worried was the lack of clothing on her body, but she knew at least she hadn't been violated, she would have been able to smell the scent of that. 'You there, Naruto?' she asked her mental brother.

'Ugh, I'm here, but I wish I wasn't!' replied the boy.

'Anything funny in there?' asked Naruko.

'There's a sort of hermaphrodite kitsune running around who tried to kiss and grope me, no real features aside from the gender specific ones,' replied Naruto.

'Maybe an aphrodisiac?' suggested Naruko.

'Makes sense,' agreed the male half of the pair.

Any further conversation was cut off by the heavy dungeon door opening. In walked Kuroten, only now she was dressed in a leather mini-kimono that showed off everything. Her gloves were now leather and went to the middle of her upper arms while the leather stiletto heel boots she wore ended at mid thigh and gave her an edge of height she really didn't need. Naruko nervously noticed the spiked bracelets, anklets, and necklace that added an unneeded sense of danger to this already formidable vixen. What surprised her and Naruto most was her companion. It was a human who was almost comically tall and thin, but his pale straw colored hair and tinted glasses made Naruko think she had seen him before. It wasn't until he sneered that she figured it out and gasped, "Gato!"

"Yes, your male half was part of the reason my little brother died," said the man. "I'm Perro (Spanish for dog since Gato is Spanish for cat), and now I can finally have my revenge!" Naruko realized that his lean look did give him the slight appearance of a dog, but she was more concerned about what would happen to her. "Unlike my brother, who was more of a general black market member, I specialize in the flesh trade, using Kuroten-hime's films as recruitment areas for 'extras' for her films that we then train and sell.

"As you may have figured out," said Kuroten, "your food was spiked. A compound in your main course combined with some disguised as spices made an aphrodisiac, while the ice cream contained the activating agent. I'm actually surprised you aren't a whimpering bundle of lust right now. But you soon will be and we'll sell you to the highest bidder. I bet the Tsuchikage would pay a fortune to film you being his little pet for a video he'd send to your father!" Naruko would have offered a snappy comeback, but the aphrodisiac was starting to hit her hard, making it hard to come up with one.

"I'll leave her to you, Kuroten-hime, I've got to contact a few people who might be interested in her," said Perro with a smirk before he left the room, leaving the two kitsune alone.

"I think we're going to have lots of fun!" said Kuroten as she gripped a riding crop and advanced towards Naruko.

(0o0o0)

"How much longer?" Hinata asked Ryeka.

"Damn it, Hinata, we'll be there in a few minutes, stop asking me!" yelled Ryeka. "Or so help me, I'll make you get out and walk! The only reason we're going this slow is because I don't want the entire JSDF crashing down on us!"

"We're coming up on the estate now," said Akira, who had been acting as navigator for the whole flight.

Ryeka nodded and flipped several switches, causing a hologram of the mansion they were approaching to appear. The hologram turned wire frame and little red figures could be seen. "Heat sensors show no major firepower, but there are a large number of guards," said the cyan haired girl.

Hinata was staring at the image with an intense expression before saying, "They're patrolling the grounds at timed intervals. But what's this?" and pointing at a large heat signature near the base of the mansion.

Ryeka glanced at the signature and her eyes widened. "Never seen anything that big before… but this place is owned by a youkai, so it could be a youkai. Can your Byakugan tell us anything?"

"It's too far with too much in the way to make out much detail, but I can see some youki, so it is definitely a youkai," said Hinata. "I think it might be a dragon, but I'm not sure."

Kimiko groaned in frustration, "If it is a dragon, we're in trouble. You'd need a fighter jet or a helicopter to match them in the air. I could purify it, but it would take more than one arrow or a super charged one, which would leave me vulnerable."

"We might be able to match a dragon in the air in this Pelican, but I mainly constructed this for combat and carrying capacity, not speed and maneuverability…" said Ryeka before a light scratching was heard at the back of the ship.

Everyone stared at one another before Kimiko's eyes widened. "Impossible," she muttered before hitting the button to open the door and revealing a panting Flamie flapping his wings furiously to keep up with them. The red dragon was currently the size of a large dog and quickly doubled his efforts to surge forwards into the back of the Pelican and land on the ground so he could recover while Kimiko closed the door and put her hands on her hips. "Flamie, what are you doing here?" she demanded.

Finally catching his breath, Flamie said, "I heard your call to your dad and took off, I didn't want him thinking of using me to catch up to you since he'd make me fly so fast I would drop from the air due to exhaustion."

(0o0o0)

Naruko panted as Kuroten stopped lashing her and tossed her riding crop aside. "Well, you're holding out better than I expected," said the dark vixen as she wheeled out a strange cart. Attached to the cart were some electric cables that ended in sponges. Naruko could hear and smell the crackle of electricity in the wet sponges and swallowed nervously as Kuroten pulled on some thick rubber gloves before grabbing two of the cables. "Let's try some electroshock therapy," said the evil vixen before she brushed the sponges over Naruko's breasts. The current wasn't enough to be lethal, especially against a kitsune hanyou, but the shock caused Naruko to scream as the sensitive nerves in her breasts were assaulted, which in turn, caused Kuroten to laugh. "By the time I'm done with you, you'll be calling me mistress!" she declared before bringing the sponges down towards Naruko's crotch. The blonde vixen's screams echoed through the dungeon accompanied by the crackle of electricity and Kuroten's laughter.

(0o0o0)

Hinata shuddered, looking back at the mansion. "Naruto… he's in trouble!"

"Well we can't just go rushing in there! You said you can't make out any details, so I can't just strafe the house because we have no idea where Naruto is and I don't want to put a 40mm bullet in him!" exclaimed Ryeka.

"Then we'll have to do a search and rescue type scenario," replied Hinata. "But we'll need a distraction to make it easier."

"Leave that to Flamie and me, nothing says distraction like a dragon raiding your house," said Kimiko with a smirk.

"Are you sure about that?" asked Miyuki.

"Yeah, I have plenty of experience riding Flamie while fighting other flying youkai," replied the dog girl.

"If we could provide them with another attacker it would divide their attention more," suggested Hinata, remembering Iruka's lectures from the academy about distractions by the rest of a team to allow one member of a team to infiltrate the target.

"Leave that to us!" said Ranko with a grin. "I've got a good flashy technique for busting down the gates and so do these two!" while putting her arms on Akira and Miyuki's shoulders.

"Then while you four cause a diversion, Ryeka will fly over the mansion and drop me on the roof so I can start searching for Naruto-kun," said Hinata.

"Let's do this!" said Kimiko as she prepared to smack the button to open the Pelican's back door.

(0o0o0)

The estate guards were caught totally by surprise by Flamie flying over the estate walls with a roar. They were trained to deal with paparazzi, rabid fans, police, and even SWAT forces, but a fire breathing dragon was more than they could handle.

(0o0o0)

"Looks like we're good to go," said Ranko as she surveyed the main gate to the estate. "I'd say I can take it down, then you two take out the guards who are sure to run towards the gate." She glanced at her niece and nephew with a smile as she started gathering her ki in her hands. "Shishisenkou (Lion Battle Roar)!" yelled Ranko as she released a ki blast in the shape of a roaring lion's head that tore through the gate in an explosion of smoke and dust, causing the guards to run towards the new opening in the walls.

"Ready?" Akira asked Miyuki, who nodded. "Kamite Ougi (Godhand Succession Move): Shockwave!" yelled the twins as they each unleashed three energy blasts along the ground that smashed into the guards and sent them flying.

(0o0o0)

From the small building on the side of the mansion, a roar was heard before a winged form broke through the roof of the building and rushed towards Flamie and Kimiko. The hanyou girl groaned as she saw a green dragon rising towards her. "Great, acid breath!" she muttered. "If it uses that on my arrows I doubt I can hit it. Guess it's flame time, eh boy?"

Flamie's answer was a fireball streaking at the green, who glided to the side to avoid the attack, causing it to crash into the ground. "Great, fast on the wing," growled Flamie.

(0o0o0)

"Time to target, one minute!" yelled Ryeka as the Pelican flew over the estate grounds. Hinata was in the back, a pair of goggles protecting her eyes. "Are you sure you want to do this?" yelled the cyan haired girl.

"Yes!" Hinata yelled, having to raise her voice to the max to be heard over the winds howling around the back of the ship's open door.

"Then go!" yelled Ryeka and Hinata leapt out of the craft.

(Cue Mission Impossible theme for the rest of Hinata's scenes)

Hinata kept her arms back and let herself fall, the wind causing her hair to whip around. Byakugan active, Hinata saw a few guards on the roof of the mansion setting up a machine gun nest and several more carrying rocket launchers. All of them were focused on the mid air duel of Flamie and the green dragon. 'Kuso, this will have to be fast and hard,' thought Hinata before pushing chakra out of her back. The burst of energy changed her landing point and Hinata extended her palm towards the machine gun nest. "Joudan Bakushou (High-Rank Exploding Palm)!" yelled Hinata just as the guards in the nest looked up. The explosive force of an explosive note shot out from Hinata's palm, both slowing her descent and blasted the machine gun nest apart. Hinata used the force of the explosion to flip to her feet from mid air and charged the few rocket launch guards with blazing chakra palms. Within seconds, the men were out cold and Hinata was dashing through the roof top door to find her beloved.

(0o0o0)

Ranko ducked under a gunshot in a scene right out of the _Matrix_ movies and then slashed with her bokken. The face of the guard she was facing turned pale as his gun was sliced in half and Ranko's follow up kick was enough to take him out.

Nearby, Miyuki was bounding around a group of guards attempting to use stun guns on her, saying things like how their boss would reward them for catching a catgirl for her. Miyuki's use of her feline agility and acrobatics lead to the capture team stunning themselves into submission.

Meanwhile, Akira was weaving between the swings of a gang of sword wielders, taunting them with things like, "My aunt fights better than that!" and "Oh I'm so scared, I've seen a faster swing from my school's principal!" while constantly spiraling around. With a grin, Akira punched into the air while yelling, "Hiryū Shōten Ha!" and sending the swordsmen into the air with the resulting tornado. A roar from above was the only warning the three Saotome had before they had to avoid Flamie's missed fireball attack.

"Kuso!" was the yell from all three Saotome kids as they had to deal with missed attacks from above and guards pouring out of the mansion.

(0o0o0)

"Yikes!" yelled Kimiko as the green dragon sent out a cone of corrosive gas. The attack was boosted by a favorable wind and Flamie roared in anger as the airborne acid brushed his left wing tip. The red dragon preformed a slide slip to get out of the attack's range and then used his greater height to dive on his enemy. Just before impact, Flamie did a loop that carried him down and into the stomach of the green dragon claws first. Flamie's talons lashed out at the softer underbelly scales and tore a large gash in them. However, even as it bellowed in pain, the green dragon's wings buffeted Flamie in the head, sending him spinning towards the ground. The green dragon roared and dove towards his foe, only to scream in outrage as Kimiko fired off an attack with a cry of, "Shuu'u (Eagle Shot)!" and sent an arrow surrounded in energy shaped like an eagle towards it. The arrow left a nasty gash above the green dragon's eyes and sent blood flowing into the right one.

The green dragon was so focused on Flamie and Kimiko that it didn't notice Akira and Miyuki spiraling around Ranko as she gripped her sword. With a cry of "Hiryū Shōten Ha!" the twins sent Ranko rocketing upwards with her blade glowing. It was only as Ranko rode the tornado that her niece and nephew had produced above the green dragon that it noticed her and by then, it was too late.

"Kuukanshouten'i (Spatial Soar Transfer)!" yelled Ranko before delivering a downward stab to the dragon's head, followed by a slash that took out its remaining good eye, a thrust that hit between the eyes, and a spinning upwards slash that left the dragon stunned as she started to fall back to earth.

At this point, Flamie swooped in with a bellow of, "Karyuu no yokugeki (Fire Dragon Wing Strike)!" as his wings were covered in flames and delivered a flame-enhanced flyby attack to the green dragon.

At close range, Kimiko released the attack she had been preparing while yelling, "Toryuu (Dragon Slayer)!" A beam of energy shot from the bow to strike the green and rapidly broke into many smaller beams that skewered the dragon in its vitals. Flamie swooped low enough that Ranko could land on his back. As the corpse of the green dragon hit the ground, Flamie touched down and roared at the guards advancing towards a panting Akira and Miyuki.

The guards hesitated for a moment, only to fall as an energy field surrounded them and many tiny togs shocked them. Ryeka grinned as she gestured to the open door of the mansion. "Let's get in there and give Hinata a hand!"

(0o0o0)

"I'll ask you one last time, where is the bitch?" asked Hinata in a sweet voice that belied the anger she was feeling, as the pile of unconscious guards behind her could attest to. The one guard she was glaring at with her Byakugan was trying to scramble away from the furious kunoichi, having given up all thoughts of trying to subdue her long ago when she caught the bullets from a sub-machine gun before crushing the gun with one hand.

"She's in the basement dungeon!" screamed the guard, a large stain forming between his legs.

"Thank you," said Hinata before her foot lashed out and sent him to sleep. Leaving the guard slumped in a puddle of his own urine, the heiress used her Byakugan to lock onto the chakra signatures farthest down. One slightly higher up caught her eye, a familiar four legged form with two tails. Hurrying down several flights of stairs, Hinata found herself outside a slightly open door and hearing a quiet voice speaking.

"Come on, wake up! You've got to get out of here and find help for your friend or that Nogitsune will break him!" the voice urged.

"Tired, drugs," was Gishou's sleepy reply.

"I know, I had to put the drugs in your food or Kuroten-mesunokitsune (bitch fox) would have known something was up and killed me!" replied the quiet voice.

Hinata opened the door to reveal a bunny youkai kneeling in front of Gishou as he rested on a small pillow. "Move away from the kitsune and I'll let you live, usagi!" growled Hinata, a kunai in hand to act as intimidation.

However, the prop was not needed as the rabbit girl threw herself at Hinata's feet. "Please save him! I only helped the mesunokitsune because she has an usagigari (Rabbit Hunting) spell on me and it will kill me at her whim!"

Hinata frowned at this, since Kyuubi had told her that gari (hunting) spells were like the caged bird seal she hated. The kitsune queen had said that spells were usually placed on a prey creature by cruel kitsune to let the victim know they lived at the fox's pleasure and making them slaves to the fox. Using her Byakugan, Hinata found a target shaped seal on the rabbit girl's back. "Hold still, I think I can remove this," said Hinata. Gathering chakra and miko energy into her hands, Hinata placed them over the mark and said, "Fuuin: Kai!" Immediately, black smoke rose up from beneath Hinata's hands and the rabbit girl's head snapped up in a wordless scream.

(0o0o0)

In the dungeon, Kuroten's head snapped up and she scowled. "Someone released the spell I had on that little rabbit, looks like I'm running out of time!" she said as she glanced down at Naruko. The fox girl was whimpering from the last half hour of stimulation she had been receiving and the Nogitsune knew she had almost broken the blonde. Flicking a piece of paper at the door to the dungeon, the Nogitsune smirked as it started glowing. "That will buy me some more time to finish up with you," she said as she pulled a vibrator from a drawer before pressing it against Naruko's crotch. Naruko started thrashing and moaning from the stimulation and Kuroten laughed. "That's perfect, now worship me and call me queen!" she yelled.

(0o0o0)

Hinata followed Chika (Scatter Flower) as the bunny girl led her towards the dungeon. The usagi youkai had eagerly agreed to show Hinata the way after recovering from having the hunting spell removed. Hinata had been surprised when Chika pulled a bandolier of flasks out and strapped it on. Seeing the pale eyed girl's surprise, Chika had explained how she made up for not being very strong by being an expert in poisons and herbs, which had been the reason Kuroten had hunted her down and enslaved her. The rabbit girl finally came to a stop in front of a door that reeked of pure evil to Hinata. The frame was two evil looking succubi posing lewdly against piles of skulls while above them another demoness floated in midair to present her breasts, each one covered with a single skull. "How nice," muttered Hinata as her Byakugan revealed the barrier sealing the doors shut. "Stand back Chika, this is going to be noisy," said Hinata as she started priming some explosive notes.

(0o0o0)

The whole mansion was rocked by a massive explosion that caused everyone to fall to the ground. "Okay," said Akira as he carefully climbed to his feet, "either Naruto busted out of wherever they were keeping him, he saw Hinata in a death like state and is getting ready to go psycho kitsune on her 'killer', or Hinata got pissed off."

"My money is on option three," said Kimiko.

"And why do you think that?" asked Miyuki.

"No youkai rage aura," replied the dog girl.

(0o0o0)

Hinata scowled as she found the dungeon deserted. She reactivated her Byakugan and found a lone chakra signature behind a door leading out of the room. But it wasn't Naruto or Naruko, so Hinata didn't go charging through the door. Instead, she used a set of explosive notes to send the door rocketing into the figure, only to have it slashed in two.

"Now that wasn't very nice," said Kuroten, who had changed into a black toga with a blood red cloak over her shoulder. Her hair was now piled on top of her head to leave her entire face visible, including thick whisker marks on each cheek the same as Naruto's.

"Neither was kidnapping my fiancé," said Hinata. Kuroten simply laughed haughtily before leaping into the air and landing in a lushly decorated spectator's box. Hinata now noticed the room was set up like an ancient Roman stadium. A cage door at the side of the arena started to rise up, and Hinata could hear roars coming from inside it.

"Get her, my kitties!" exclaimed the Nogitsune as a pride of lions exited their cage and fixed their eyes on Hinata. The whole pride charged towards Hinata, while Chika let out a squeak of fright and leapt up into the arena's seating area.

Hinata calmly flashed through hand seals before yelling, "Suiton: Mizuame Nabara (Syrup Capture Field)!" and spewing a thin sheet of water that caused the lions' paws to stick to it. As the pride struggled, Hinata activated her Byakugan and released killing intent at them while saying, "Kanashibari (Temporary Paralysis) no Jutsu!" The lions instantly stiffened and whimpered. "Get out of here!" ordered Hinata as she released her Mizuame Nabara and pointed towards the door she had come through. The lions scrambled to escape from the scary girl out the door she had blasted open, though one of the younger lionesses took a moment to rub against Hinata in gratitude, causing the heiress to give her a pat on the head as she left.

(0o0o0)

"Woah!" yelled Akira as the group was forced to jump and avoid the panicking lion pride.

"They were saying something about a scary white eyed lioness," said Miyuki. "Looks like Hinata can be scarier than we thought since those lions don't have any fresh wounds. Not to mention one lioness in particular smelled like she had brushed against Hinata and gotten a gesture of affection."

(0o0o0)

"Awww, I wanted a bloodbath!" pouted Kuroten before snapping her fingers to summon a legion of gladiators from another gate.

Hinata sighed and suddenly blurred forward before reappearing behind the fighters in a kneeling stance. As she stood up, each of the gladiators exploded in a shower of stone. "Golems are useless against the Bakusai Tenketsu (Breaking Point)," said Hinata in a bored tone as she turned to face a scowling Kuroten. "Now release Naruto-kun or I'll get angry!"

"You presume to dictate orders to me?" growled Kuroten before jumping down to face Hinata in the center of the arena. The kitsune woman reached up and touched the brooch that held her cloak closed and was suddenly dressed a suit of fancy blood red European armor with a black bodysuit underneath. In her hands was a European style sword with a snarling fox head shaped hand guard, but Hinata's eyes could see a series of v-shaped lines running up the blade in the direction of the tip. Hinata settled into a Jyuuken stance, Byakugan active as she watched her opponent.

(0o0o0)

Naruto and Hinata's friends arrived in time to see the two opponents square off, then a rumbling beneath their feet was the only warning before the entrance they had come through rose up to become part of the stadium. A golem above the lush spectator's box Kuroten had occupied was standing by a massive gong and swung a hammer at it. The loud ringing of the gong was only topped by a loud booming voice declaring, "MORTAL KOMBAT!" Apparently Kuroten had a thing for certain video games.

Instantly, Hinata was rushing in, using her experience against Kasei as an estimate to how fast Kuroten was. But unlike when sparring with the past self of Naruto's mother, this time her kitsune opponent was heavily armored and out for blood. However, Hinata was able to use her chakra to allow to 'skate' around Kuroten's attacks and suddenly darted forward with a chakra charged palm raised. Kuroten, however, smirked and Hinata's Byakugan suddenly saw the vixen's sword extend. Hastily performing a Kaiten to defend herself from the unexpected assault, Hinata blasted Kuroten away, though the vixen easily rolled with the force of the blast and landed on her feet with the now elongated sword reaching to her feet, the segments joined by a thick cable running down the middle of the blade. "How do you like my Jadoku (Snake Venom)?" asked Kuroten with a smirk.

"I've seen scarier, Orochimaru's Kusanagi no Tsurugi made him look meaner and he was simply a fifty year old man obsessed with little boys," replied Hinata. Hanging out with Naruto had taught her long ago the notorious art of bashing someone, hit them where it hurts, and Kuroten was obviously proud of her looks and weapon.

Kuroten's smirk turned into a clenched tooth snarl as she growled out, "I'm going to enjoy ripping the flesh from your bones little bitch! I've already broken Kyuubi's little brat and you'll make a fine present for the Sandaime Raikage!"

"Hmmm, was that the sound of constipation I heard? Because all I heard was shit from an ugly hag," countered Hinata, causing her friends to stare at her wide eyed due to the vulgar language she used. However, the taunt had its desired effect as Kuroten screamed in fury and charged Hinata, her sword a glittering storm of small blades looking to slash Hinata apart. The Hyuuga heiress weaved, ducked, and rolled through the attack and came up right inside Kuroten's guard with a Jyuuken blow to the heart. However, the kitsune didn't collapse and Hinata was the one who cried out in pain before pushing all her chakra to her legs to help her leap high above Kuroten and avoid the spikes on the vixen's armored legs as Kuroten tried to kick the pale eyed girl in the stomach. Hinata examined her hand, noting that it felt like it had been sunburned. "You've got youki flowing through that armor?" she guessed.

"Ooohhh, a smart little girl!" cooed Kuroten, "I heard about the Hyuuga from Perro, this armor won't let any of your fancy Taijutsu through!"

"What about this?" asked Hinata's voice from behind Kuroten before the kitsune felt a blow to the back that sent her crashing face first into the wall. "I may not be her full time student like the others, but I've learned from Konoha's greatest Kunoichi, our Godaime Hokage Tsunade of the Densetsu no Sannin!"

Kuroten pulled herself from the wall and scowled at Hinata before gasping as cracks spread across her armor before it shattered, leaving her in what looked more like a swimsuit with hip armor. "What did you do, you little slut?" growled the kitsune as she resummoned her cape to give herself some more clothing.

"Bakusai Tenketsu with my whole fist, your armor is useless now. I'm prepared to do anything it takes to beat you and free Naruto-kun!" declared Hinata before coughing up some blood. "When did you?" she gasped.

"My Jakudo is razor sharp, you never even noticed I landed a few blows to your back!" taunted Kuroten as she reconnected her sword to show several bloodstained blade segments which she promptly licked clean.

"Bring it on, granny!" yelled Hinata.

"I don't think so," said Kuroten with a smirk. "You say you'd do anything to free Naruto?" The black vixen snapped her fingers once more and another gate opened. "How about fighting her?" asked the kitsune as a red shrouded figure appeared in the gate. It was Naruko, but her rear legs had turned into those of a fox, causing her to walk on all fours. The whites of her eyes had become blood red, while her whisker marks were as thick as a thumb. But what chilled Hinata to the bone was that her beloved's eyes didn't seem to recognize her. "It took me some time, but I finally broke her and now she's going to subdue you and your friends. Perro will get a good price for the lot of you!"

"Lady, you're crazy!" yelled Akira as he prepared to leap down and help Hinata, only for the black kitsune to hit a button in her spectator box. Lightning instantly flashed along the seats, stunning all of the watching teens before they could make a move.

"No comments from the peanut gallery," said Kuroten before looking at Naruko. "Destroy them my pet!"

Once again, the mysterious announcer's voice rang out, "FINISH HER!"

Naruko started bounding towards the petrified Hinata, gaining more and more speed until it was hard to Hinata to keep track of her. Hinata was surprised she was able to block the thrusting claw attack Naruko made at her, grasping the blonde kitsune's wrist with both arms. Still, Hinata was pushed back a bit and found herself looking right into Naruko's eyes. So she was the only one to see Naruko's eyes turn back to normal before the fox girl grinned and winked.

Using her trapped arm as a pivot, Naruko spun around Hinata and launched blades of fire and wind chakra at Kuroten with a cry of, "Tobi Kaen Tsume (Flying Flame Claw)!" The Nogitsune had a moment to stare in surprise before she leaped clear of her spectator's box and landed in the arena.

"How did you break my brain washing you little slut?" she yelled, gripping her sword as she did so.

Naruko smirked as she nuzzled Hinata. "Oh, the aphrodisiac is still in me, it's all I can do to keep from jumping Hinata-chan here and going through the rest of the night. But the brainwashing didn't take because I've got voices in my head that kept me from going crazier!"

"That doesn't make any sense," muttered Kimiko as she twitched in the arena seats. "But then again, that's totally normal for Naruto."

Naruko raised her hand and a Rasengan formed in her palm before one side started growing longer and sharpening to a point even as the whole thing shrank. "Rasenfukiya (Spiral Dart)!" yelled Naruko as she launched the ice cream cone shaped Rasengan at Kuroten, who dodged to the side of the attack and saw a foot long hole drilled in the arena wall by the spiral bullet.

"Kaisakukou (Free cutting steel)!" roared Kuroten as she twisted the handle of Jakudo and caused the blade segments to separate before hovering around her and then shooting towards Naruko and Hinata point first.

"Hari Jizō (Needle Guardian)!" proclaimed Naruko as her tails and hair lengthened to enclose Hinata and her in a shield of steel like fox hair. The nogitsune's attack bounced off the spiky defense and Naruko charged out of the temporary shield with her eyes fixed on her Nogitsune opponent.

Kuroten used the handle and cable of her sword as a whip and started creating a shield of steel with a cry of, "Kanaami (wire screen)!"

Naruko smirked as she danced between the furiously lashing steel cable and cried, "Ryūjin Jakka (Flowing Blade like Flame)!" as she moved, a blade of dancing flame appearing in each of her hands to block the wire attacks. Fearing the blonde's dual blades, Kuroten recalled the blades that made up Jakudo and reformed her sword. Flame met steel as the two kitsune clashed, only for Naruko dismiss one of her flame blades and instantly form a Rasengan and jam it into Kuroten's stomach. The jutsu sent the Nogitsune through the air and into the arena wall, where she slumped unconscious in the crater her impact created.

"Hinata and Naruko win" the booming voice declared.

"Ok, me tired, need sleepies," mumbled Naruko as she started to collapse, only to be caught by Hinata.

"Naruko-chan, you're too much," she said with a smile as their friends gathered around them, only to spring to defensive stances as an explosion created a new entrance to the arena. Black clad figures rushed into the room and took up positions guarding the door.

One of the black clad people raised their hands to a head set and said, "This is team 2, we have located Uzumaki-san in female form and her friends!" while another, obviously female team member if the figure hugging body suit was to believed, moved towards the group of teens while holding a first aid kit.

"Are any of you injured?" she asked. Now that she was close enough, the teens could see a patch on her shoulder depicting a winged parachute over a diamond in front of a wreath.

"Woah, JGSDF SFG (Japanese Ground Self Defense Special Forces Group)!" gasped Ryeka as the woman tended to the cuts on Hinata's back and another pulled a jacket out for Naruko and helped Hinata get the kitsune girl covered up when she proved unable to dress herself.

"Commander on the deck, attention!" yelled a voice and the teens all witnessed the special force troops standing at attention. To the teens' surprise, the man that entered the room next was very familiar.

"Otou-san?" gasped Akira and Miyuki as they stared at their father in a lightweight armored combat suit bearing the SFG emblem on the shoulder.

"Yes, JSDF realized my skills would be useful for a special operations leader. I'm the leader of one of two teams that specializes in counter terrorist activities. If you'll follow me, my commander will debrief you so we can all go home," said Ranma.

"Does mom know?" asked Akira.

"Yes, and when she heard you kids would be here it was all I could do to keep her at the house, now come on!" said Ranma. He led them back up into Kuroten's mansion, where they were escorted to the dining room Naruto had dinner in. There, they found Sailor Saturn standing beside the chair at the head of the table, while the chair had its back to them. However, the red armored sleeves told the group who it was even before the chair turned to reveal Kenshin with his Crimson Dragon helm resting on his lap.

"Everyone have a seat, this will take a bit of explaining. And Hinata, can you possibly jog Naruko into a more alert state?" requested Kenshin. Hinata pulled a soldier pill from her supply pouch and gently put it to Naruko's lips, causing the kitsune to chew and swallow it. Naruko almost immediately became more alert, but she insisted on moving a chair next to Hinata's seat so she could lean against her fiancé. "I'll be quick in consideration of how late it is. You kids are all of the mindset that you can handle things yourselves and that's true. However, recently you've found yourselves in over your heads a few times lately and you need some help. So, I propose an arrangement: if you need help, you can call us and we'll make sure things don't get out of hand. Luckily, Nerima is one of Japan's wards with a 'don't touch' policy, but if you're outside the ward you might have to deal with police or even the army if things get serious. In that case, please use these to call my office and they'll help smooth things out." At this point Kenshin slid a sleek black cell phone to each teen. "They're encrypted for talking to one another and to my office, and the best thing is your parents don't have to pay a cent. Ryeka, feel free to trick yours out, but don't mess with the encryption programs." Ryeka blushed lightly at this before returning her attention to browsing the phone's features. "I'll let you kids get back home now, and Ryeka? No more sudden flights, we had a hard time convincing JASDF that we were doing a raid on this complex with an experimental stealth plane. Luckily, we've wanted to get in for a few years so they bought it. Thanks to you kids we've broken a major slave trafficking ring and gotten some drugs Perro was running on the side. Speaking of the little bastard, he managed to slip away through a bolt passage. He's a vindictive type, he might come after you all again, so be on your guard from now on. Commander Saotome, please escort them back to your residence!" Ranma nodded and lead the kids to Kuroten's limo, which had been commandeered for this trip. Inside, Naruko promptly put her head down on Hinata's lap and started dozing, while her friends chatted softly.

"There's one thing that's bothering me," said Miyuki suddenly, causing everyone to look at her. "Why are Naruko's legs like that and is it permanent?"

One of Naruko's eyes cracked open and she mumbled, "Kuroten forced a partial transformation on me, she commented that it would fade in a few hours so the Tsuchikage would get me as I normally look and not half an animal." The rest of the group nodded, the trip to their homes and the exciting evening leaving them tired. As they dropped off Kimiko, Naurko's feet returned to human form and Hinata had to give her another soldier pill to keep her from passing out.

(0o0o0)

Naruko and Hinata had barely gotten inside and were being fussed over by Hoshiko when the door opened to reveal a tired looking Jiraiya carrying a bag in one hand and a giant folder in the other. "What the heck happened to you two?" he asked before noticing the bruises on Naruko's back Hoshiko was tending to with Hinata's cream. Jiraiya could recognize whip marks easily and his next words seemed to freeze the air. "Who is the bastard who did this to you Naruko? I'll rip his balls off, stuff them down his throat, and then sew his mouth shut before beating him to a pulp!"

"It was a Nogitsune vixen," said Hinata as she helped Naruko into a sleeping yukata.

Jiraiya's eyes narrowed and he said, "You skinned her alive, right?"

"No, she was arrested and is being taken to a facility capable of containing her," said Hinata, remembering what Kenshin had told them.

(0o0o0)

Kuroten groaned and slowly sat up, aware she was not in her luxurious room with a slave pleasuring her awake. Instead she found herself in a cell that had a toilet, small sink, single table and chair, and a bookcase with a few books on it. But the worse insult to Kuroten was the hideous bright orange prison jumpsuit that did nothing to flatter her figure. Furious, she stormed up to the bars of her cell, grabbing them and preparing to rip them out of the concrete. Instead, she was blasted by a wave of miko power and thrown back to her bed.

"Give it up, all the cells in here are warded with seals carved into the bars and ofuda placed in the walls during construction," said a voice. Kuroten looked up at the familiar tone and smirked as she saw a black Nogitsune with nine tails and a tattoo of two canine fangs with blood on them on the arm his jumpsuit sleeve was rolled up to show.

"Hello, little brother," she said. "I heard you and your friends were beaten by Kyuubi's brat, but seeing you here means it was true."

Gin snorted and said, "Yeah, and according to the guards you got beat by his girl form and that little white-eyed slut."

"If I could get to you I'd tear you in half!" roared Kuroten. Gin simply smirked at her before turning back to the book he was reading.

(0o0o0)

"Okay, but this is suspicious, two Nogitsune going after Naruto in particular so quickly," said Jiraiya.

"Nogitsune are scum, they'll do anything to sate their desires," said Naruko with a yawn.

"We'll talk later," said Jiraiya. "You two get to bed, I'm calling the school and saying you're both sick tomorrow!"

"Hai," mumbled Naruko as Hinata helped her stand up. The Hyuuga girl kept the kitsune's arm over her shoulder as she led Naruko to her room, where Gishou was already resting on a pillow.

"Goodnight Naruko-chan," said Hinata, only to feel Naruko cling to her.

"Don't wanna be alone," muttered Naruko sleepily. Hinata sighed but helped the kitsune to her own room, where they lay down together in the bed after Hinata changed into her own yukata.

(0o0o0)

Later that night, Hinata woke up and found herself alone in the bed, though the soft padding of footsteps told her Naruko hadn't been gone long and was heading towards the bathroom. When the footsteps returned but rapidly passed the doorway and headed outside, Hinata slipped out of her bed and quietly followed. She found Naruko making hand seals before pressing her hands against the ground. "Kitsune Doton: Takotsubo (Fox Earth Style: Fox Hole) no jutsu," whispered Naruko, causing a staircase to descend into the ground. Hinata followed Naruko down and found her fiancé standing in the middle of a modest bedroom with a comfy bed. Naruko made her way to the bed, removing her yukata on the way, before climbing on top and taking a deep breath. "Here goes," she muttered. "Damn Kuroten, this aphrodisiac is driving me crazy!" gasped Naruko as she started to move her hand between her legs, only to feel a pair of breasts pressed against her back and Hinata's hands holding hers.

"I don't think you want to do that, Naruko-chan," said Hinata.

"Hinata, I HAVE to! If I don't get some relief I'm going to go crazy and be a nymphomaniac for the rest of my life!" sobbed Naruko.

"I meant you shouldn't just rush into this," said Hinata as she kissed the kitsune girl's cheek. "Sharp claws and inexperience don't seem to end with a pretty picture to me, do they?" Naruko paled at the thought of accidentally clawing herself. "Let me help you Naruko-chan!"

"You'd do that for me?" whispered Naruko.

"You're as much a part of Naruto-kun now as he is, after seeing how Ranma-sensei and Akane-sensei act together it's clear Akane-sensei has accepted Ranma-sensei's female half as there to stay," replied Hinata as she hugged her fiancé.

"Hinata-chan," whispered Naruko as tears threatened to spill out of her eyes, only to have Hinata kiss them away.

(0o0o0)

"You're so cute, Naruko-chan," said Hinata as she snuggled up to the kitsune several passion filled minutes later.

"And you're gorgeous," mumbled Naruko as she nuzzled Hinata's chest.

"Finally regained coherency?" asked Hinata with a smile.

"Yeah, Naruto managed to beat down the lust aspect the aphrodisiac created in our mind while it was paralyzed from the orgasms you gave me," said Naruko with a smile that quickly turned into a smirk. "Now it's my turn to return the favor!" With that, Naruko pounced on Hinata and lightly pinned her to the bed.

(0o0o0)

"Where did you learn how to do that?" demanded Hinata when she recovered from the pleasure overload.

"Let's just say mom was really loud right after Kudora freed her from that soul dagger and I heard stuff that would make Jiraiya pass out," replied Naruko with a blush.

"Woah, I don't think I'm up for more tonight," muttered Hinata as Naruko channeled some youki and chakra into the bed, instantly cleaning the sheets.

"Yeah, same here," murmured Naruko before her tails handed Hinata her sleeping yukata while pulling her own on.

"Thank you Naruko-chan," said Hinata as she slipped on the garment before kissing her fiancé goodnight. Both girls snuggled under the covers with their arms wrapped around one another.

(0o0o0)

"They alright?" Jiraiya asked Hoshiko as the housekeeper returned to the house.

The kitsune woman nodded, pouring herself a cup of tea. "While I don't approve of two kits who are so young being together like that, I do understand your reasoning of 'Old enough to kill, old enough to drink and have fun,' but I draw the line at Naruto actually sleeping with Hinata. Kyuubi-sama gave me very strict instructions about that!"

Jiraiya waved his hand as he sipped his own tea, saying, "Relax, I won't push for that, even though the kid would love the experience. They're not ready for that level in their relationship." Privately, Jiraiya was wondering how long Hinata would be able to resist jumping Naruto and making him a man.

(0o0o0)

When the teens returned to school after their day to recover, murmurs flew around the school about how Naruko was practically hanging off of Hinata's arm and both girls seemed to be glowing. When an angry Naruto made an appearance at gym class, Inuyasha found all his classmates besides Akira, Jason, and Zenith with atomic wedgies stuck to the locker room wall with kunai. When asked to explain this, Naruto said, "They asked if I was 'banging my sister and Hinata!' so I explained it was none of their business!" Inuyasha sent the few sane boys to have fun playing laser tag while he gave their hormone driven classmates a severe tongue lashing.

(0o0o0)

"Naruto, we need to talk," said Jiraiya as soon as the fox boy entered the house with Hinata. Wordlessly handing Hinata his book bag, the kitsune followed Jiraiya to the sennin's room, where the Gamma Sennin used a seal array to block out Hinata's Byakugan and any other advanced senses. "Now the information I got last night is mostly related to you, but you can share it with Hinata and your friends if you think they need to know, but I wanted to tell it to you in private," explained Jiraiya as he set a manila folder on the low table he used for writing. "According to my sources, there is a group called Shichinan (The Seven Misfortunes of Buddhism) comprised of seven kitsune. Each one represents a different sin of human kind. I started looking into things like this when you got that challenge letter on the first day of school, but the group is secretive and the connection between Gin and them was well hidden. I don't know the real names of any of the members besides Gin at the moment, but I do know they're all Ankoku's kits and after you so one of them will have a chance to claim the title of Kyuubi. My contact did give me one picture of one of the more publicly recognized members, if you ever see her, run like the hounds of hell are after you!" With this Jiraiya passed Naruto a photo, which the blond kitsune flipped over, only to see Kuroten's face smirking at him.

"That's the bitch who tricked and drugged me!" yelled Naruto.

Jiraiya immediately pulled out a notebook and crossed out several items. "My editor suggested her as a cover model for the next Icha Icha book, going to have to say that's a no go," muttered the super pervert before snapping the book closed. "Well, she was Lust and Gin was Wrath. I know the top two in the group are Envy and Pride, but they're not public figures at all, almost nothing is known about them except rumors. But they aren't the kind to draw attention to themselves, they'll probably wait and observe their siblings' battles with you to learn your weaknesses. So be careful."

"Got it, Sensei," said Naruto, who immediately left to tell Hinata the bad news. "As if Akatsuki and dealing with High School weren't enough," muttered the kitsune as he walked towards the Saotome Dojo.

And that's a wrap. As you probably know if you have me on author alert, my Grandfather on my dad's side died at the start of March. Sadly, my mom's mother passed away from cancer at the start of April. I'm amazed I managed to get this out as fast as I did. I'll try to write more during the summer. I'm also going to be at Fanime this year, just look for the Konoha ninja with the Handy Haversack and Bag of Holding.


	7. Trial 6: Musk, Phoenix, and Kitsune

**I don't own Naruto, if I did Sasuke would not be an asshole, Pein would have fought Naruto in a battle of pure awesome, and Danzo would be crushed beneath Kyuubi's paws.**

**_Note, the formatting might be screwed up due to the funky way I had to upload this. Please bear with it, but if it is seriously messed up and letters seem to be missing from words please PM me about the error so I can go in and fix it!_**

"Ugh, I hate it when guys forget I'm inside Naruko's head," muttered Naruto as the group walked towards the Saotome dojo. The last few days had been full of Naruko and Naruto expressing their affection for Hinata and most of the boys in Furinkan appeared to have lost all blood flow to their brain in favor of their lower head. Hotaru and her class had been busy with a constant stream of perverts with broken bones and bruises. Even worse had been Hinata having to deal with a bunch of shallow girls who wanted the intimate details about Naruto. It had taken, Ranko, Kimiko, Miyuki, and Ryeka working together to hold the kunoichi back from slaughtering the girls who lewdly asked how long Naruto was and how his stamina held out. Said girls found that annoying a girl whose fiancé could prank a whole village full of ninja and not be caught by the most experienced ones was a bad idea when all their clothes ended up bearing labels like 'slut', 'whore', and 'bitch' that wouldn't come out no matter what they tried.

"Yeah, dad says his friends acted similar to that," said Akira.

"At least my fiancé doesn't hit me with a mallet when I make a mistake or upset her," said Naruto, only to collapse as a slightly annoyed Hinata had poked him in a pressure point to disable his legs. "She just does things like this," he muttered into the ground.

The rest of the group chuckled as Akira helped Naruto up and the blond used puppy dog eyes to get Hinata to restore his legs. "Dude, never piss off your girlfriend when she's behind you and can kill you with a poke," stated Akira.

"How was I to know that would make her mad?" whined Naruto.

Akira smirked as he ruffled the younger boy's head and answered, "Naruko and the fact she's being compared to another woman."

"Noted," grumbled Naruto before his ears and nose twitched. "Something on the wind… smells kind of like a phoenix mixed with something else…."

"I haven't summoned any phoenix tribe members," said Hinata, activating her Byakugan. "It's not a phoenix, it's a girl… running from two men!" she yelled.

"I could use some stress relief," said Naruto as he dashed in the direction Hinata and his senses indicated with the rest of the group following him.

Rounding the corner was the source of the scent, a girl with flame like hair wearing a red cheongsam with green leather armor boots and gloves. She was followed by a slightly older girl in a good quality but simple Chinese tunic and pants that kept looking back over her shoulder. Chasing them were two men in matching Chinese tunics, each armed with a sheathed jian (Chinese double edged straight sword). Both men moved with the grace of seasoned fighters, but they were not expecting to have a blond kitsune dart between them and do a handstand before spinning on his hands to send the men crashing in different directions. The one on the left found himself assaulted by Akira, Hinata, and Ranko, while Naruto, Kimiko, and Miyuki leapt towards the other. Ryeka swooped in and grabbed the flame haired girl under one arm and the older girl under the other, carrying them to the top of a nearby building. "Stay here, you'll be okay!" she said before diving back down to join her friends in the budding brawl, only to find the two sword wielders knocked out and Naruto scratching his head.

"I guess I hit them harder than I thought," he said.

At that moment, the slightly older girl dropped down, a halberd in her hands aimed at the teens. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" she asked as the flame haired girl dropped down behind her.

The teens all shared a look before Miyuki said, "Ano, we saved you from these psychos?"

"These psychos are the princess's own bodyguards!" yelled the older girl.

"A princess, we had no idea!" gasped Naruto sarcastically. "Lady, when two guys with swords and matching clothes are chasing someone through the streets it looks like a bunch of cultists looking for a virgin sacrifice to me!"

"Sit!" hissed Hinata, causing Naruto to face fault into the ground. "Please forgive my fiancé, he's had a rough day," she said while bowing.

"Quite alright," said the flame haired princess before bowing. "I'm Cinnamon, princess of the Phoenix tribe and this is my maid Lavender, pleased to meet you." At this greeting, Akira, Miyuki, and Ranko's faces all turned pale.

"Phoenix tribe… from Jusenkyo?" asked Ranko quietly.

"Why yes, have you heard of us?" asked Cinnamon, only to have Ranko and the twins bolt off like bats out of hell.

(0o0o0)

Ranko actually leapt over the wall of the Saotome house with her niece and nephew right behind her. Barely stopping to remove their shoes, the trio sped into the house and Ranko slammed open the door to the living room. "Nii-san, bad news, I think Saffron is here…" yelled Ranko, only to trail off as she saw Ranma and Akane turn to face her instead of the three people seated on the couch across from them. Ranko could immediately name two from her brother's stories. "And in your living room with Herb?" she finished weakly as she stared at the humanoid phoenix resting on one side of the couch. Next to him was a man with white, blue, and pink hair who had his arm wrapped around a beautiful woman with golden hair whose face had a mischievous expression. All three wore Chinese style armor, though Saffron's had a flame motif as opposed to the dragon scale armor of the couple.

"Did you manage to split your curse off into her own body Saotome?" asked Herb as he looked at Ranko.

"No, my mom was so excited when I finally married Akane that she dragged pop off on a second honeymoon and nine months later Ranko popped out," explained Ranma, splashing himself with some of his water to prove he was telling the truth.

"What about the little tiger girl?" asked the woman next to Herb.

"My daughter Miyuki, Happosai made a mixture of spring of drowned girl and drowned cat with more of the girl water that she got soaked in," said Akane.

At that moment, the door opened and a younger version of Herb with gold instead of white hair entered after removing his shoes. "Father, Cinnamon hasn't come back yet?" he asked.

"No, your sister is still out seeing the sights," said Herb, only to have Akira cough and point behind the newcomer to show Cinnamon, Lavender, Naruto, Hinata, Kimiko, and Ryeka staring at the gathering.

"I think we need to move to the dojo to have more room," said Ranma with a chuckle.

(0o0o0)

Once everyone was seated in the dojo, with the Saotome clan, the Chinese visitors, and Furinkan students forming a sort of triangle arrangements, the introductions began.

"I am Prince Herb of the Musk Dynasty," said Herb with a seated bow. "This is my wife Cassia and this young man is my son Thyme."

"I am Saffron, lord of Phoenix Mountain and this is my daughter Cinnamon and her maid Lavender," said Saffron, while inclining his head.

"These are my students Naruto, Hinata, Kimiko, and Ryeka" said Ranma as he pointed to each in turn, "And these are my twin children Akira and Miyuki, while you already met Ranko. Now mind telling me why you came to see me? I really don't think Nerima can stand up to a rematch between me and the two of you."

"We are here because of a matter concerning my daughter," said Herb, trailing off as he received puzzled looks from everyone without advanced senses, who had already put the pieces of the puzzle together.

"But the only girl here that looks anything like you is…" said Akane before trailing off and staring at Cinnamon, now noting the blue and pink forelocks that resembled kindling to her flaming mane.

Seeing Hinata glancing at him, Naruto nodded. "Yeah, Cinnamon smells like a combination of Herb-sama and Saffron-sama!" whispered the kitsune, while Kimiko nodded.

"You actually gave birth?" gasped Ranma, staring at the man who shared his Jusenkyo curse.

"It was the end of a long day and Cassia apparently slipped something into the wine to get me in the mood for the evening," said a red faced Herb.

"And since I was there to negotiate a treaty with Prince Herb we shared the same cup to seal the deal…" continued Saffron, his own face red.

"Best night ever!" chirped Cassia with a smirk that made both men blush.

"You weren't the one who had to carry a giant egg in their body for a month and then push it out!" growled Herb.

Cassia simply smiled at her angry husband and said, "But you looked so happy when you were tucking Cinnamon's egg into the heated nest we built for it! You would constantly slip out of bed to check on her until she hatched! I've seen you look at that nest several times, maybe you want another child?" Sufficiently cowed, Herb ducked his head down while Saffron gave him a sympathetic glance before taking over the explanation. It was clear that while he ruled the Musk Dynasty, Cassia was a true power behind Herb's throne and could manipulate him easily.

"Recently, we became aware of an evil mage who needs the blood of a dragon and a phoenix to summon a hideous monster called the Tarrasque. From what we can glean from ancient scrolls, the beast is largely invulnerable due to its high regeneration. Herb and I speculate it would take both of us working together to even come close to defeating the beast, thus we came to the only person we know who has ever defeated either of us, you!" explained Saffron as he gestured to Ranma.

"So you want me to help fight an ancient evil if this psycho gets a hold of Cinnamon?" asked Ranma. Seeing his former adversaries nod, the Wild Horse of Nerima groaned. "I'll do it, but we'd better make it hard for the nut job to get Cinnamon!"

"Then you need to hire specialists," said a new voice, though there was nobody else visible in the dojo.

"Show yourself!" demanded Thyme, a blade of ki forming on his hand.

Jiraiya slowly rose up from a shadowy corner of the room in full Sennin mode. "I'm Jiraiya of the Densatsu no Sannin from Konohagakure no Sato in Hi no Kuni. I'm Naruto and Hinata's primary caretaker and sensei in ninjutsu. If you need body guards, Naruto and Hinata are a good choice," said the white haired man.

"Your skills are impressive, but what about theirs?" asked Herb as he regarded Naruto and Hinata, only to feel a tap on his shoulder. Turning, he saw a smirking Naruto holding the spiked ring that kept his hair in its long ponytail, which now settled down around his shoulders. 'I never even sensed him move…' thought Herb, only to see the Naruto seated by Hinata disappear in a puff of smoke.

"Kage Bunshin no jutsu, one of my most useful jutsu, it allows me to create a solid duplicate of myself," explained Naruto as he handed Herb the hair piece. "In addition to my clones I can summon kitsune and toads, various ninjutsu, kitsune style taijutsu and kenjutsu, and the traditional ninja skills."

"Most impressive, and what can you do young lady?" Cassia asked Hinata with interest.

Hinata activated her Doujutsu and said, "My Byakugan is the perfect surveillance aid, I can also disable enemies with attacks to their body's chakra network and even attack the inner organs. I also know some ninjutsu and have a summon contract with the phoenix clan." This last item caused Saffron to stiffen.

"Show me!" ordered the phoenix king.

Hinata quickly flashed through the hand seals and slammed her hands to the ground with a cry of, "Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Instantly the room was obscured by a giant smoke cloud, only to reveal a woman who appeared like an older female version of Saffron.

"Hinata-chan, why have you summoned me?" she asked before noticing the other Phoenix in the room. "Saffron? What are you doing here my chick?"

"Well mother, Hinata-san said she had a contract with our clan, but I hadn't heard anything about a summoner. I asked her to prove her claim and she summoned you!" said Saffron.

"Is this true Hinata-chan?" asked the female phoenix.

"Hai Suzaku-sama!" said Hinata with a bow.

"Well, it seems like my daughter has a good set of potential protectors," Saffron started to say, only to be slammed against the wall by his mother.

"You have a hatchling and never sent a letter to me telling me this?" she said in a deceptively calm voice. "Do you know how long I've despaired of you finding a good woman who could carry your children to hatching???? How many years of spoiling have I missed out on????"

Cinnamon giggled at the panic in her father's eyes and stepped into his defense by hugging Suzaku tightly. "Grandmother, please let father down?" she softly requested. Suzaku complied and swept the phoenix dragon hybrid up in a hug.

"Oh you're just so cute, I wish I could have been there for your birth! Where is your mother, I have to see the baby photos!" gushed the phoenix queen before tilting her head slightly. "But why do you have the scent of dragon on you?"

"That's because my husband is the sometimes mother of your grandchild," said Cassia. Seeing Suzuka staring at her in confusion, the dragoness dumped a glass of cold water on Herb, turning him female. Unlike Ranma, Herb's basic appearance stayed the same except for the obvious gender differences and a slightly smaller and thinner build in female form.

"There's an interesting story here, please tell it," said Suzaku as she sat down with Cinnamon in her lap.

(0o0o0)

"I see, and this mage wants to sacrifice my grand hatchling?" demanded Suzaku once Cassia had finished telling the story and showing Cinnamon and Thyme's baby photos, much to the dragon boy's embarrassment.

Cassia nodded, her usually playful face deadly serious. "Yes, and even if I didn't view her as my own daughter I would give my life to protect her," said the dragoness as she laid a hand on Cinnamon's shoulder.

"Could you explain one thing first?" asked Hinata. Seeing everyone's attention on her, the Heiress blushed slightly but continued, "What did you mean about carrying Saffron-sama's children to hatching Suzaku-sama?"

"Because of our fire nature, only another phoenix or a creature with incredible magical reserves can create a baby phoenix. However, most of the phoenix tribe is either much older than my son or much younger, making them uninterested except for a power grab, which I won't tolerate. Princess Herb's Dragon heritage allowed her to carry Cinnamon's egg and lay it safely," explained Suzaku.

"I do have a suggestion on how to protect Cinnamon," said Jiraiya. "Our house is protected by seals, something this mage probably has no experience with. Cinnamon can share a room with Hinata while Thyme can bunk in Naruto's room. Both of them can have the cover of transfer students at Furinkan to make them not stick out like a prince and a princess would. That way Cinnamon will be close to her protectors at all times."

"I'm in!" declared Cinnamon before her parents could say anything. "I would rather go to public school than have to deal with those boring tutors back home!"

Thyme winced at his sister's declaration and said, "Now sister, they are only trying to do their jobs," only to be interrupted as Cinnamon turned to him with a determined look in her eyes.

"Brother, you don't want to live a normal life for a little bit? Just think, no more having to listen to those court flunkies, no having to go to those fancy balls you hate, free to wear clothes that don't itch everywhere and make us sweat gallons away, and most of all: no prissy princesses coming to court you!"

"When do we leave?" asked Thyme.

(0o0o0)

The two new transfer students turned out to be a minor sensation in the typical Nerima view point. Cinnamon was targeted by Shugo, only to have Thyme show the kendoist that a ki sword beats a bokken any day. Both of the siblings quickly gained their own fan clubs, but Thyme's fan club died moments after being formed as he managed to convince Ranko to act as his girlfriend to keep the horde of fan girls at bay by the start of class. Like Haku's pretend romance with Sasuke when she first entered Konoha, it was easy to see it quickly became more and more real as the two ate meals together. It helped that Ranko was very down to earth and practical, something Thyme valued in a woman.

Cinnamon was turning heads as she walked down the halls of the school, numerous boys crashing into classmates, walls, and in one case, the girls' bathroom. Naruto and Akira seemed to be the only boys totally unaffected by her charms, as Naruto noticed even Jason and Zenith would blush when Cinnamon smiled at them. Shugo was heard ranting about he had three lovelies to choose from, Miyuki, Hinata, and Cinnamon, which earned him a beating from Akira, Naruto, and Thyme that left him in bandages for the next few days.

(0o0o0)

"So how are you two enjoying public school?" asked Naruto as the group walked home a few days after Thyme and Cinnamon started attending Furinkan.

"Better than tutors," declared Cinnamon while winking at a boy walking by the group and giggling as he tried to keep watching her so much he tripped and fell flat on his face.

Miyuki scowled slightly and asked, "Do you ever stop flirting?"

"Blame Auntie, I know I inherited my mischievous nature from her being the constant female parental figure," said the phoenix dragon hybrid.

"Kind of like how it seems whatever Naruko is wearing makes her look sexy?" asked Akira, only to get a bop on the head from Naruto.

"Naruko can't help it, kitsune vixens are inherently sexy, even the shy ones can turn heads in full kimono!" exclaimed Naruto, only to get hit by the local ladle lady and pout. "We're Chunnin, how could we not dodge that?" asked Naruko as she shook some water off her head.

Ranko chuckled as she explained, "No harmful intent, she gets Ranma-ni-san every time he comes by her place, just like her mother did before her. There is always a little old ladle lady in Nerima who hits any Jusenkyo curse victim as she's washing the side walk in front of her yard."

"Great for her," muttered Naruko before a light bulb sprung up above her head. Creating a single Kage Bunshin, the fox girl sent it off to Kitsune Sō (Fox house) to set her plan into motion.

(0o0o0)

"Sensei, I need some help," said the Naruko clone once she found Jiraiya meditating in the house's upstairs dojo.

"I am not giving you Icha Icha for inspiration for things to do with Hinata, your mother would kill me," said the super pervert as he opened his eyes.

"You mean this?" asked the clone as she held up a copy of Icha Icha. "All I had to do was walk into your room looking for you and snag it! But that's not what I'm asking about! I need to create some seals that will shoot out elemental blasts so the boss and Hinata-chan can practice dodging ninjutsu more easily!"

"Sounds interesting, and since you're a clone this is a good thing to work on," said Jiraiya as he started looking through the scrolls on sealing that were in his scroll library. "We'll need the basic elemental seals and some of the type used in launching kunai traps…"

(0o0o0)

Naruko sighed as she caught a bowl of ramen tossed from the kitchen by Cologne. "This is pure torture Cologne-sensei! You let everyone else have a free bowl but keep me working?" she wailed.

"You admitted to being caught off guard by an enemy, an Amazon should know better," stated the Joketsu elder as she tossed five more bowls that were each caught by Naruko's tails.

"I'm not a poison expert!" countered Naruko, delivering her bowls to the tables that ordered them and glaring at Cologne.

"Naruko does have a point," said Hinata as she finished her bowl of miso ramen and stood up to help her fiancé with the orders. "The academy doesn't cover more than basic poison and it would have to be specifically tailored to a kitsune to have the full effect on Naruto or Naruko."

Cologne nodded to show she got the point before saying, "Be that as it may, we're going to be studying herbs, you're all well along the way to physical skills, so we'll delve into some other skills." With that, she sent bowls of ramen whizzing through the air, all of her servers scrambling to catch all the flying dishes.

(0o0o0)

"Well, you're certainly good at this," said Jiraiya as he examined the special seal Naruko's clone had created by merging a seal to store heat and one to store water. "I guess the blonde hair and blue eyes aren't the only things my apprentice passed down to you."

"Well, after learning the Hiraishin formula, this is kind of easy," said the clone as she started working on another new seal. This one appeared to be the same as the one in Jiraiya's hand, only with the heat seal inverted.

"You know the formula?" asked Jiraiya, raising one eye brow.

"Duh, Tou-san wanted to make sure I knew exactly how it worked. Plus, mine have a slightly different signal so I don't accidentally use the same kunai dad is using at the same moment," explained Naruko's clone before resuming her work.

"Where are you going to put these seals?" asked Jiraiya.

The clone pointed out the nearby window, where the underground lair Naruko had made a few nights ago still stood out amongst the grass of the yard. "Chakra in the earth can be stored inside the seals to keep them strong and allow for instant recharging," explained the clone.

(0o0o0)

"You look exhausted," said Thyme as he lent Naruto a shoulder to help the fox boy make it back to Kitsune Sō. Cologne had kept Naruko on edge all evening, shooting mildly irritating poisoned darts at the fox girl to spice up the training. Apparently the Matriarch knew how to make poisons to effect kitsune, much to Naruko's annoyance.

"The old ghoul is a slave driver!" growled Naruto.

"I think she's cool," said Cinnamon with a grin.

Hinata tried to defuse an impending argument by saying, "Naruto-kun, if you calm down I'll give you a massage before bed!" Naruto blinked before grinning and giving Hinata the nice guy pose Gai and Lee used so often.

"You've got a deal Hinata-chan!" declared the kitsune as they reached the house and entered to find Naruko's clone still there and looking over a seal. "You're still here?" asked Naruto, causing the clone to blink in surprise.

"I guess I lost track of time," said Naruko with a chuckle.

Hinata, Thyme, and Cinnamon looked from one kitsune hanyou to the other before Thyme started rubbing his head and muttered, "This is confusing."

Naruko suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke, while Naruto grabbed his head and growled, "Damn, it's like I'm seeing everything from two perspectives, like I'm Naruko and someone watching her!"

Hinata ran a glowing green hand over Naruto's head before saying, "Is Naruko-chan okay to?"

"Yeah, but she got the same two viewpoints. It appears if I am the active one when her clones dismiss themselves or she is active when my clones cease to exist then we get a double viewpoint to account for our two personalities. However, I was able to see some mistakes she made before I sorted through her viewpoint and she spotted several things I missed on the way home," said Naruto.

"I think a good soak is in order," said Thyme as he helped Naruto to the furo, leaving Cinnamon and Hinata to have some girl talk together.

(0o0o0)

"Ready for your massage Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked as she opened the door to the dojo, only to find a slightly blushing Naruto and Naruko waiting for her and a second massage table beside the one she had set up before going to get some massage oils and muscle balms she had forgotten from her supplies. Both kitsune were wearing swimsuits, Naruto having a pair of whirlpool swirl patterned trunks and Naruko a modest flame patterned bikini. "Just what is going on here?" asked Hinata, carefully hiding her amusement.

"Well, I figured since Naruko had to endure most of the hard stuff today I'd let her have some fun too. I temporarily used Okaa-san's Kitsune Rei Wakedori (Fox spirit sharing/division) to split us apart with real bodies so we'd both get the full benefit of the massage."

"I don't really mind, I do get some more time with Naruko-chan," said Hinata before she formed a familiar cross hand seal. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" with a puff of smoke, there were now two Hinata standing side by side. Both joined hands and twirled around quickly so the two kitsune wouldn't know which Hinata was the real one and then split up the supplies Hinata had brought. At the Hyuuga girls' instructions, both kitsune lay face down on the tables, allowing Hinata and her clone to start rubbing massage oil into their backs. The twins immediately started groaning in delight as Hinata's nimble fingers combined with her Byakugan allowed her to massage Tenketsu and pressure points all at once. Hinata soon had her patients go from tired kitsune to very content kitsune. It was really no surprise to Hinata when Naruto spun himself around and pulled her onto his lap for some cuddle time. Naruko was the surprise, as Hinata realized that every time she came near one of the fox girl's sensitive spots she would moan lightly. "Are you okay Naruko-chan?" asked Hinata in concern.

"I think that aphrodisiac Old Hag Kuroten used on me plus her attempts to break me had a more lasting effect than I thought," replied the female Kitsune, causing her brother and Hinata to stare at her with worried looks on their faces. "I think it made me submissive," continued the blonde. Naruto's face instantly gained a look of understanding while both Hinata and her clone looked confused.

"And since Hinata was the one to take care of you and made you submit to her because of your inexperience, you've accepted her, right?" asked Naruto, getting a nod from his twin.

"Accepted me as what?" asked the Hinata by Naruko.

"Her/my mistress," said the two kitsune at the same time.

The result of this comment was the Hinata next to Naruto giving an "Eep!" as her face turned into a tomato before she exploded in a cloud of smoke and the Hinata with her hand on Naruko's back had a similar expression. "Mistress?" she demanded. "I don't want a slave! I hate how the branch family in enslaved by the main family and you want me to have Naruko as my slave?"

Hinata's anger was cut off as Naruko wrapped her arms around the fuming heiress and nuzzled against her. "Not slave Hinata-ojou-sama, but your pet!" she declared before her tongue darted out and licked Hinata's neck.

"Ah, Naruko-chan!" gasped Hinata, unprepared for the sudden assault.

"I'm not going to be some tame little fox Hinata-ojou-sama, I'm going to be a feisty little vixen and if you don't keep me under control I'll start to run wild!" declared Naruko with a mischievous grin, only to be bowled over as Hinata used some of the Tai Chi moves Ranma had taught her to floor the vixen and subdue her.

"Bad Naruko-chan!" said Hinata, grabbing a nearby towel and rolling it up. She gave the kitsune a few light whaps on the head with her impromptu weapon, which earned her a few startled yaps and a moan with the last one, only to hear the sound of feet running out of the room and looking up to find Naruto was gone. However, Hinata was forced to fend off a suddenly fierce Naruko and apply her temporary weapon to the fox girl's recently massaged bottom to keep Naruko from jumping her and keeping her up all night.

(0o0o0)

'Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts!' Naruto yelled inside his head as he poured a bucket of cold water on his head. He hadn't expected Naruko to go so far with her act. 'I'm going to have a long talk with sis soon!' he thought with a shudder.

"Something wrong?" asked a voice behind Naruto that set warning bells off in his head. Slowly turning his head slightly, the fox boy found Cinnamon looking at him over the edge of the furo. The dragon/phoenix girl's head and arms were the only parts of her he could see, which made him grateful, since he doubted Thyme would kill him for seeing that much.

"Sorry Cinnamon, I was so panicked I forgot to check that the bathroom was unoccupied," explained Naruto.

"That's ok, I can see you've got a problem," said Cinnamon with a smirk as her eyes flicked down Naruto's body. "Maybe I could help you with it?" Naruto glanced down and the next moment there was a Naruto shaped hole in the wall as Naruto got out of the bathroom without using the door. "Hmmm, never had that reaction from a boy before," said Cinnamon as she leaned back in the furo.

(0o0o0)

"Poor kid," said Jiraiya as he restrained Thyme from castrating Naruto. "He's really got it tough. His sister and girlfriend can get closer than he can at the moment, that's got to be rough on him. I'm going to have to have a talk with him!"

(0o0o0)

"What the hell am I going to do?" moaned Naruto as he sat beneath the branches of a tall tree watching the full moon in the Feudal era. He had managed to slip past the Kamiya family having dinner and enter the well without being caught and was far from the well. "Seeing Hinata and Naruko like that… like something out of Ero-Sennin's books… if I hadn't gotten out of there I might have done something I'd regret! If I got Hinata pregnant our parents would kill me and she'd lose her clan's respect!"

The rustling of some bushes had Naruto on his feet in a second, hands armed with kunai in case a stupid youkai decided kitsune hanyou would make a tasty midnight snack. His fears were put to rest when Kasei and Mia stepped out of the bushes. The little human girl was now dressed in a set of soft leathers that let her move freely through the trees and bushes while making her harder to spot with her dark hair. She also carried a set of daggers Rin had given her, and the fact she had her hands hovering near the handles had Naruto smiling. "Hello Naruto, what are you doing out here with such a negative aura?" asked Kasei as she looked her future kit over worriedly. Mai was much more direct, running up to Naruto and hugging him before gripping one of his tails.

"Well… it's kind of like this," said Naruto as he carefully explained what had happened.

"My poor kit," said Kasei, pulling Naruto into a hug. "Matters of the heart and instinct are never easy. Youkai will always be torn between their instincts and their common sense when dealing with humans. Even after so many years they still confuse me and I doubt I'll ever fully understand them."

"Why can't you just kiss Hinata-nee-chan?" asked Mai, from where she was perched in Naruto's lap.

Naruto sighed, ruffling the little girl's hair, as he said, "The problem is I want to mate with her… but my mind knows we aren't ready for that. My instincts don't care and it's tearing me apart."

Kasei gave Naruto a knowing look and asked, "And it doesn't help that Naruko is able to make love to Hinata when you can't, right?" Naruto simply nodded.

"What's making love?" asked Mai, only to have both kitsune blush.

"I'll tell you when you're older and ready for it," said Kasei before she pulled some herbs, a mortar, and a pestle from seals within her robe. "I think I can help you in one regard Naruto, removing the worry of accidental impregnation when you finally take Hinata to bed. This elixir will neutralize your sperm and Naruko's eggs, making sure you can't pass on anything to Hinata in either form. It's good for about five years, so when you get back home to my future self, remind me you need the antidote."

(0o0o0)

The next day Hinata came down to breakfast to find a cheerful Naruto reading the comics and greeting her with a hug and a kiss. Even as she searched his face for any signs of resentment about Naruko being able to be intimate with her, Hinata couldn't find any, even with her Byakugan. With Cinnamon and Thyme staying at Kitsune-Sō, meals were much livelier as Cinnamon seemed to relish not having to eat 'fancy gourmet food' but had been told firmly by Hoshiko that pizza, hamburgers, and ice cream were not appropriate as her sole source of food. Thyme was more restrained, but even he appreciated the simple meals over the grandiose displays he was subject to at home. While the royal cook was definitely skilled, he had more of an eye for appearance than taste with some of his dishes. Thyme still shuddered at the display that had resulted when the cook had sent out a roast ostrich the last time Saffron had visited. Serving a giant bird to the Phoenix Lord was a bad idea and Saffron was furious. He acknowledged that Cinnamon could eat chicken, turkey, and other bird based dishes if she wanted to, but to suggest he turn cannibal was a grievous insult. The cook had barely escaped being skewered on the giant spit meant for roasting five oxen at once when Cassia and Cinnamon turned on their best pouty faces and made him calm down.

As soon as breakfast was over, the kids rushed off to Furinkan, quickly being joined by Akira, Miyuki, and Ranko. Ryeka usually simply teleported to the school yard while Kimiko came to the school from the opposite direction of the rest of the group. Just as everyone met up and before Naruto and Kimiko could rush to Li Na's ramen stand for a fresh hot morning bowl of ramen, a giant crack in the ground opened up in the middle of the school courtyard and a horde of small humanoids poured out. "Goblins?" asked Kimiko in shock, a similar expression on the faces of many fantasy and RPG fans as one of the most common monsters in the genre was now attacking them. Luckily for the more normal, at least in Nerima terms, students, the horde had to get through the tougher students first. Kunai and shuriken filled the air, while weapons were pulled out from packs or subspace. Claws tore through goblin throats and energy blasts flew through the air. The Kendo club, armed with shinai and bokken, formed a defensive screen between the entrance to the school and the goblin horde. Kimiko led a group of students in the archery club in firing volleys of arrows into the mass of targets, the normal students having run to the second story of the school and firing from windows, while the hanyou girl was using the courtyard's trees as sniping spots. Keiichi, who had been tinkering with his motorcycle in the school's parking lot, roared around the courtyard armed with a spear he grabbed from a careless goblin and looking like a modern day knight. Lightning bolts started raining down from the sky accompanied by gusts of wind while some of the engineering club's flying robots helped defend the front of the school.

Just when it seemed the Goblins would retreat, reinforcements arrived, a second horde of goblins, riding on fearsome worgs and lead by the goblins' larger hobgoblin relatives. Taller than the smaller goblins, better armed and disciplined, the hobgoblins were more than a match for the Furinkan defenders. It was at this point that a horde of Naruto clones were summoned, and the battle was truly on.

"Where the heck are these things coming from?" demanded Kimiko as she jabbed a goblin in the eye with an arrow before yanking the projectile out and shooting it into a hobgoblin's neck.

"Don't know, just keep killing them!" yelled a Naruto before unleashing a giant fox fire ball that engulfed a group of goblins on worgs.

Amidst the confusion, a giant black horse with a flaming mane and hooves appeared out of a dark portal in mid air bearing a rider clad in ebony plate armor with a bone motif. The only features of the rider that could be seen was a face pale from lack of sunlight. Trampling over Goblins, worgs, and students, the rider snatched up Cinnamon as she blasted a Hobgoblin away from a fallen student and spun about. Cinnamon's shriek as she attempted to break free but found she couldn't escape alerted the rest of her friends, only to have the horse and rider gallop back towards the portal they had come from while the goblins, worgs, and hobgoblins formed a screen to protect him. Naruto, Thyme, and Hinata managed to leap over the enemies and almost had the rider in their grasp before he suddenly released the reins of his mount and fired a blast of arcane energy that sent all three flying. As the flaming horse and rider entered the portal from which they came, it started to close.

"HOLD PORTAL!" yelled a voice as what looked like a ring of transparent bars appeared to keep the portal from closing. Gosunkugi had arrived just in time to cast the spell and give Naruto, Thyme, and Hinata time to recover and jump through the portal before it crushed the bars. Ryeka barely managed to toss a softball sized orb through the closing portal before it winked out of existence.

(0o0o0)

On the other side of the portal, Naruto, Thyme, and Hinata found themselves facing another horde of goblins with wargs. Backing up this one was a larger group of hobgoblins and some even larger creatures whose faces slightly resembled bears. Naruto recognized them from Gosunkugi's lesson on the goblinoid monsters as bugbears. Both sides stared each other down, neither one moving until a loud PING sounded from the orb Ryeka had tossed through the portal. Then the goblins roared and charged the three intruders in their realm.

(0o0o0)

"Got 'em," said Ryeka as the global map on her holographic laptop gained a blinking dot. "Looks like is an undocumented island off the coast of Africa…"

"How is that possible?" asked Kimiko, double checking the arrow she had just pulled from a goblin corpse.

"Probably magic or a barrier like the one Naruto said surrounds the elemental countries," replied the cyan haired girl. "Looks like a fairly big place, but whatever is protecting it is messing up my sensors just enough that I can't pinpoint their exact location. I also don't want to see what would happen if I try to transport us there. And if the meteorological data I'm getting is accurate, flying us there would be very difficult. There seems to be a hurricane surrounding the island, but it's stationary and not effecting much beyond a mile out from the island shore."

"Let me see," said Gosunkugi as he walked up to the girls, Akira, Ranko, and Miyuki following behind him. The Saotome kids were quiet, not enjoying having to put their talents to use in killing living creatures, but knowing that it was life or death with innocent lives riding on the line. "Ah, that effect would be from a Lair Ward. It's an ancient draconic device used by dragons to protect their layer. This one in particular is called Hurricane's Eye. It's basically a spell set into a five foot wide crystal orb that controls the winds. I'd have to say there are at least ten of the wards surrounding the island to keep the whole island covered and protected within the eye of the hurricane."

"Great, that means flying in would be difficult, even in a space ship," muttered Ryeka.

Natasha glided over to the group and held up a small crystal ball that rested in the palm of her hand. "Don't worry Ryeka, while Gos kept the portal open for those three to go through I cast Analyze Portal on it and we can set up a duplicate portal to take us there!"

(0o0o0)

"How many of these things are there?" yelled Naruto as he sliced off a goblin's arm. Neither Hinata or Thyme answered him as they were busy fighting their own enemies. The Musk prince had taken to the air with his father's Ryu Sei Hisho (Soaring Dragon Spirit) and dive bombing the horde for a single physical attack. However, the giant ki blasts he dropped behind him as he dived sent goblins and hobgoblins flying. Hinata was leaving a trail of toppled wargs, goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears behind her as she struck each enemy once over the heart. However, even with Naruto creating hordes of Kage Bunshin, the goblinoids kept on swarming the three. Things changed when a new portal opened up and a futuristic dark blue hover craft shot through it, sending goblinoids flying as it rammed into them. Then Akira opened up with the laser turret on the back of the craft, sending plasma bolts into the horde that burned through their crude mail like a hot knife through butter. Two smaller plasma cannons on the front of the tank like craft added their sweeping fire to his, decimating the horde. Kimiko and Miyuki entered the fray riding on the back of Kudora with Hiryuu, only for the cat girl to jump from the nekomata and start using her ki claws on the goblins around her. Ranko waded into the fray seconds later, wielding a shinai with a ki aura around it that made it as sharp as a masterwork katana.

"You three are crazy!" yelled Kimiko as she unleashed a youki infused arrow to decimate the goblinoids after figuring out her spiritual powers weren't effective enough against them.

"They have my sister!" yelled Thyme, slicing off a bugbear's left hand before decapitating the giant goblinoid. "I don't know what their sick leader could do to her besides taking her blood, but that's enough to tell me he has to die!!!"

"Less talking, more fighting!" yelled Hinata as she ducked under an axe swipe before using a kunai to stab the hobgoblin wielding it in the thigh. The hobgoblin went down to one knee then fell over on its face as Hinata preformed a Jyuuken kick to the head to turn its brain to mush.

Hiryuu had started chanting as soon as he saw the horde of goblinoids and now threw down ofuda around his friends so they had a circle of the talismans around them. "Everyone get behind the talismans!" yelled the taijiya monk as a protective circle appeared from the pieces of paper. His friends hurried to comply, only for Miyuki to cry out as a goblin sword got her in the right side as she spun to leap into the circle.

"Miyuki!" yelled everyone, before their voices were drowned out by a cry of rage from Akira as a red aura erupted around him before he disappeared. The next thing everyone heard was the sound of bone and meat parting as Akira reappeared next to the goblin that hurt his sister and ripped the goblin's arm off. The Saotome boy then proceeded to beat the goblin and several others around him to death with said arm, while his friends and the horde looked on in horror. Akira followed this up by releasing a beam of pure hatred in the form of red ki that he swept across the horde, vaporizing half of the remaining goblins and leaving about fifty that were slowly backing away from the personification of brotherly retribution.

There was a red blur as Ranko swept through the rest of the horde, her ki sharpened shinai sending arms, legs, and heads flying as she let loose her righteous older sister/aunt anger on the demoralized goblins.

Everyone eyes the two panting Saotome aside from Hinata, who was working to heal Miyuki's wound. "Scary," muttered Naruto.

"You'd probably do the same thing if someone hurt Konohamaru, Moegi, Udon, Akemi, Haruki, or Haruko," said Hinata as she helped Miyuki climb to her feet. "The wound isn't too deep, but be careful once we get home and take it easy for a few days," she told the cat girl, who nodded.

"Well, we've gotten rid of the minion horde, now we storm the castle, right?" asked Ryeka as she temporarily opened the hatch of her Wraith.

(0o0o0)

At the castle in question, well, more like a giant evil tower that looked like it was ripped out of the Earth by evil forces of darkness, Cinnamon was currently stuck with magic bindings keeping her suspended in mid air inside a vertical stone circle. "So bored!" muttered the phoenix dragon hybrid. Beyond her kidnapper dragging her up to this room, she hadn't seen anyone else in the castle. Her eyes actually lit up as the door to the chamber started to open. "Finally, can we get going with the sacrificial bit or whatever you're going to be doing to me?" she asked.

"I'm afraid if you're expecting my master, you're in for a disappointment," said a female voice as a succubus is a maid uniform entered the room, a small pile of fabric in her hands. "He's recovering from opening the portal used to bring you here, so you have another hour of life remaining. I'm just here to fit your sacrificial dress. The name's Toshi, sorry we couldn't meet under better circumstances."

"Cinnamon of the Musk tribe," replied the hybrid princess. "Don't suppose I get a last meal, especially considering he should want me in the best quality for his sacrifice?"

"I'll see what I can whip up, but the douchebag doesn't have much taste for oriental cuisine, so I don't have much practice cooking the things you are most familiar with," said Toshi as she held the mostly see through fabric up to Cinnamon with a critical eye. "Don't suppose you're willing to tell me your sizes?" she asked, pen poised in her prehensile tail to take notes on a piece of paper. "The other girls he's captured for rituals rarely do and struggle so much I end up wasting tons of this stuff."

"Promise to give me a good last meal and I'll even throw in a kiss with tongue plus a full body grope so I get some fun before I die," countered Cinnamon with the flirty grin she used to charm boys to doing her bidding.

"I like the way you think," said the succubus with her own grin of delight before she started writing down the numbers Cinnamon rattled off.

(0o0o0)

"It's going to take even Hinata and me hours to get through this," said Naruto as he stared at the primeval forest surrounding the dark tower. "Not to mention that tower is pretty big if we can see it clearly from a mile away and it still looks big."

"It's practically a small skyscraper," agreed Ryeka as she typed some commands on her holographic laptop. Ten small metal orbs floated out of a small hole in reality, each one having a group of sensors placed around its surface. All ten shot towards the tower and Ryeka grinned as she watched her laptop. "Okay, my remotes are scanning the area and will tell us the best way to get there," she said before blinking. "Huh, the geological sensors are picking up a pretty deep down bedrock layer, the soil here is practically virgin and not very dense… why are you grinning Naruto?"

"Everyone gather round!" yelled the blond as he formed hand seals rapidly. "Doton: Dochū Senkō (Earth Style: Underground Submarine Voyage) no Jutsu!" With the final seal, the group sank into the ground.

(0o0o0)

Cinnamon had to fight to keep from drooling as Toshi brought in a large covered plate. When the succubus set it down and lifted the cover to reveal a large juicy steak, a baked potato, and grilled zucchini all freshly cooked, the princess lost the battle and a small line of drool escaped as she licked her lips. "Oh man, that looks good!" she said.

Toshi smiled and proceeded to cut bits of the food for Cinnamon, feeding each bite to her one at a time. Thanks to some runes on the plate, the food stayed hot the whole way through the meal. "Did you enjoy that?" asked Toshi as she gently used a napkin to clean Cinnamon's face.

"Very much, but what's for desert?" asked the princess. Toshi smirked and started to remove Cinnamon's school uniform.

"I'll be taking my part of the deal now, then cleaning and dressing you after I'm done," replied the Succubus as she leaned in and kissed Cinnamon. True to her word, the princess returned the kiss with plenty of tongue.

(0o0o0)

In the basement of the dark tower, there was a miserable dungeon. The only inhabitants were several orcs in a guard room currently enjoying a round of beer, and a lone human in a cell inscribed with runes of great power to keep him there. The man in question was idly tossing a single curved kunai up and down, while a series of tick marks on the black stone walls showed how long he had been in the room. The current tally was a hundred days, and his clothing certainly looked like it, the light purple yukata he was wearing bore many stains while his red hair and beard were noticeably shaggy. "I hope those bastards remember to bring me some grub, what I wouldn't give for a decent bowl of ramen," muttered the man before blinking at a growing bulge in the ground at the other side of the cell. His eyes widened as a katana blade surrounded by an energy field popped up and started cutting a circular hole in the cell's stone floor. The man watched with interest as a hand pushed the chunk of floor out of its place and onto the rest of the floor, though whomever it was that was doing the pushing was careful to set it down so softly no sound reached the carousing guards. The arm was revealed to belong to a blonde haired youth that had the man gasping and the boy looking at him. "Ken? No, you're too young to be old lightning hair," said the man as he surveyed Naruto. "You've got his hair and eyes, but those whisker marks…"

"You obviously know my dad, but I don't think I've ever met you," said Naruto as his friends slowly climbed out of the tunnel he had made to get them into the tower dungeons.

"Yeah, our villages aren't allies. But I'm sure you've seen that small crescent moon scar on his right arm at some point, right?" asked the man. When Naruto nodded, the man grinned and held up his curved kunai. "I gave him that with this, in exchange he sliced my nose so badly I need to wear this bit of metal to keep it from flopping off!"

"Holy shit, you're Iwa no Kuro Kazan (Iwa's Black Volcano), Rōshi!" gasped Naruto. "Dad's always said you were the only one in Iwa who could stand up to him in one on one combat!"

"Yeah, I heard he had a little clone running around, but I never thought I'd get to meet you. I met your mom once when your parents happened to be staying at the same inn I chose for my night's lodging and saw some pictures of you your dad was carrying," said Rōshi. "But I'm afraid we're stuck in here, this cell is enchanted to keep my chakra restricted and I can't pick a magical lock."

Akira had been examining the door and now poked it, causing it to explode out into the rest of the prison. "Got to love the Baketsu Tensai," he said as Kimiko stepped out of the cell with and arrow at the string. By this point, the guards had heard the commotion and were running towards her, small axes in hand to take advantage of the narrow dungeon corridor.

Kimiko simply raised her bow chanted, "Hayate (Strong Gale)!" before she filled the corridor with a storm of arrows that left no doubt that all the guards were dead.

"Whoa, couldn't have done it better with Kunai Kage Bunshin myself," said Naruto as he saw a few arrows had punched through the orcs and pierced the walls. Any further banter was interrupted by Thyme storming up the stairs. An unfortunate goblin that had apparently been sent down to investigate the noise of combat from the dungeons found itself looking backwards as the dragon prince twisted its neck without breaking his pace. Naruto turned to the former prisoner, who was now doing a few stretches to get his body used to moving. "You going to be okay, Rōshi-san?" he asked.

"Yeah, you kids go have fun. I'll grab some of the grub here and catch up to you later," said the Iwa ninja as he walked towards the guard room and started filling a plate.

"Come on, who knows what horrors they're inflicting on my sister right now?" yelled Thyme.

(0o0o0)

Toshi pulled back from Cinnamon, a blush darkening her cheeks as she caressed the princess's body. "Cinnamon, you are delicious," she said with a smile. "I haven't felt this good in ages."

Cinnamon smiled at Toshi and sighed happily. "And I haven't felt this good in a long time, you're really good!"

"Thanks," said Toshi, giving Cinnamon a kiss on the cheek. With a gesture, the succubus caused a small cloud to form over the princess. The cloud released a cascade of warm perfumed water that cleaned Cinnamon from head to toe. Toshi then dressed the girl in the sacrificial dress, basically two pieces of fabric held together at the shoulders and kept from billowing by a golden chain belt.

"Man, I'll give the old coot some credit, he has good taste in the skimpy stuff," said Cinnamon, smiling at the cool feeling of the fabric on her skin.

"Yeah, he's a pervert through and through. First thing he did after gaining his mastery was to summon me and bind me to him," said Toshi as she started brushing Cinnamon's hair. "I can't go against him as long as he has the bat winged ring on his hand… Argh!" At that moment, the succubus collapsed to the ground, her body spasming as if an electric current was running through it while Cinnamon looked over her shoulders in horror.

"You know the price of defying me Toshi," said a voice that managed to sound old and powerful at the same time (Think the Emperor from Return of the Jedi), as Toshi screamed in pain. "Your pain is only the first part of your punishment, tonight as I celebrate my victory I'll be merciless as I sate my desires with your body! And as for you girl, your time is up!" With that, Cinnamon found herself suddenly transported to a new containment ring, only this one was outside. She also found herself face to face with her kidnapper, a wrinkled old man with glowing yellow eyes dressed in black robes (Again, Emperor Palpatine, only with crimson pinpoints of evil light for eyes), holding a wooden staff toped by a skull with a black gem in its mouth. "Welcome Princess, I hope your stay in my tower has been pleasant?" he asked.

"Until you freaking tortured Toshi in front of me!" snarled Cinnamon.

"That little slut knew the cost of defying me! Nobody defies Senik, Master of the dark arts and gets away with it!" snarled the mage. "Now behold what will allow me to rule the world!" with that, Senik raised the staff and pointed beneath the cliff they were on. Looking down, Cinnamon saw a large skull with a huge mouth lying on top of a few giant bones. "This is all that's left of the last Tarrasque to walk the planet ages ago, it was slain by an alliance of humans and demons working together to put it down for good and then bury it on the sea floor. I have brought it to the surface so it can be revived with the phoenix blood in your veins and strengthened by the dragon blood you also carry! Now begins the ritual of awakening!" The wizard started to chant, and even though she didn't recognize the language, Cinnamon knew it was evil as the very light around them started to dim. A circle of runes appeared around the giant skeleton, each rune shining with an ominous red, black, purple, or green light.

(0o0o0)

Thyme cursed as he darted up the stairs towards the top of the tower. He could sense his sister's ki at the top of the tower and he intended to rip his way through anything standing between them. Several orcs, hobgoblins, and bugbears had learned this the hard way, including one goblin that found out it couldn't fly when Thyme simply tossed it out a hole in the wall he'd created when blasting a bugbear against the wall. Just as Thyme reached the door to the top floor of the tower, he heard a female voice scream and his sister's Ki fade away. Busting down the door, Thyme found a succubus in a maid outfit collapsed on the floor, the slight twitches she made revealing she was alive. As Thyme cursed, he barely felt the burst of energy that signaled a teleport behind him. The dragon prince spun around, Ki sword blazing from his arm to block the large sword that would have split him in half. Thyme's eyes narrowed as he found himself facing the warrior in the skull motif armor who had kidnapped his sister. The skull warrior suddenly lashed out with a foot, causing Thyme's eyes to widen as the spiked boot snapped up. The dragon prince crashed into the wall from the kick, falling to his knees as he gasped for air. The spots dancing in front of his eyes barely let him see the warrior kick the limp succubus aside as he strode forward to finish Thyme off.

That was when Naruto entered the scene, Rasengan swirling in his hand as he rammed it into the skull warrior's side. As the dark warrior went sailing into and through the wall, his hand shot out and a lasso of black energy snapped out to pull the kitsune after him, sending both of them plummeting towards the ground from the top of the tower. As Thyme staggered to his feet, the rest of the group reached the room and saw shifting lights through the new hole in the wall. Looking out, they could see giant bones levitating towards a nearby cliff.

"I can see Cinnamon over there!" yelled Hinata, staring at the cliff with Byakugan active. "And… this can't be right, but there's a dead body moving around and casting the spell!"

"He's a lich!" gasped Toshi as she struggled to sit up. "You'll have to find his phylactery and destroy it to defeat him!" With that, she collapsed from the strain of her torture.

"You find the thing, I'll save my sister!" growled Thyme before launching himself out of the impromptu window and soaring towards the ritual site.

"Great, we've got to find some stupid artifact!" growled Akira. Kimiko was tending to Toshi, trying to revive the succubus so she could help them, while the rest of the group started searching the room.

(0o0o0)

"Let my sister go!" yelled Thyme as he landed on the cliff above the giant set of bones.

"You'll have to take her!" declared Senik as the orb of his staff sprouted a glowing black blade, turning the magical instrument into a scythe humming with negative energy. Thyme reformed his Ki sword, squaring off against the evil mage.

(0o0o0)

"Talk about your sore losers!" yelled Naruto as he plummeted towards the ground. Strangely, the skull warrior seemed calm and Naruto saw why as the man shifted into a giant bat with an eight foot wing span. "Kuso, a vampire!" moaned Naruto before he noticed the ground getting to close for comfort.

**And that's it! I'm cutting this chapter off so the next one can be mostly the awesome fights I've set up. Now, a few requests. 1, I've never fought a Tarrasque in DnD, so if any of my readers have and managed to survive, please give me ideas or send me a PM if you want to talk about it over MSN. 2, I've come up with a writing challenge. I don't have enough time to write another story, but I like the idea and I think it's a good one. So I'm putting it on my profile and asking if anyone wants to have a go at it. All I ask is you stick to the basics in the challenge and PM me when the first chapter is up so I can read it.**


	8. Trial 7: Epic Battles and Dates

**I don't own Naruto, if I did Danzo would never have become Hokage, Nagato and Naruto would have had an epic one on one duel, and Jiraiya wouldn't be dead. I also don't own the Disney songs I recommend as background music for some scenes. And Hinata would have torn Sakura apart for her 'confession.' Seriously Sakura, you're not fooling anyone!**

Naruto barely managed to use a blast of wind chakra to push himself to the wall of the tower, allowing him to latch on with chakra and stick to the tower's outside wall. "Phew, that was close," he said as he saw he had three stories between him and a hard meeting with the ground. The sound of flapping wings reminded Naruto he had an unwanted visitor as the vampire in dire bat form dove at him, attempting to rake the kitsune with its claws. Naruto rolled aside from the attack, taking advantage of gravity's grip on his opponent and starting to run up the tower wall. "It's day now, so how is this guy moving around? SPF 1000?" mused Naruto. The beating of wings warned him the vampire was coming in for another attack and Naruto answered with a barrage of kunai and shuriken. Naruto grinned as several of the projectiles hit the dire bat's wings and sent the transformed vampire plummeting towards the ground, only for his frown to disappear as the wounds healed and the vampire resumed chasing him. "Damn fast healing," he said.

(0o0o0)

Thyme ducked beneath a slash from Senik's scythe, barely avoiding the dark energy blade. What made it more difficult for the dragon prince was the fact the energy blade could cut both ways, unlike a normal scythe that could only cut with one side of the blade. "Give up, boy and I'll make your death swift and painless," taunted Senik. "You're five hundred years too young to beat me. When I'm done with you I'll pry the secrets of the dragons from your body and clone you! With an army of humanoid dragons and the Tarrasque to serve me, the world will be mine for the taking!"

"You talk too much!" grunted Thyme as he pulled a spear from within his robes using the hidden weapons technique. Having discovered the hard way that his Ki sword couldn't perfectly block the dark blade, the dragon prince brought out a physical weapon to help him. The spear was a dark blue, almost black with a red dragon head at the end. The dragon's mouth was open and the spear point emerged from it as if the dragon was spitting it out. In contrast to the rest of the spear, the spear head was a glistening silver point that made it look like lightning was gathering in the dragon's mouth. Thyme spun the spear around his body rapidly to check the balance was still perfect. Assuming a low stance with the spear held like a quarter staff, Thyme raised his hand and beckoned at Senik. "Bring it, you pile of bones!"

(0o0o0)

"Okay, what's a phylactery?" asked Akira.

Kimiko rubbed her head in irritation as she started to explain. "It's a magical object that contains the lich's life force. Unless we destroy it, the guy will just revive in a few days. Usually they're something fancy you wouldn't want to destroy or that you would loot, allowing the Lich to survive when you don't know what to look for."

"If it has the lich's life force in it then maybe I can detect it with my Byakugan," suggested Hinata, activating her Doujutsu and starting to examine the tower, only to scowl. "This guy is really paranoid, the walls and floors are filled with runes that block my Byakugan! But I think they're meant to prevent scrying into the tower. I can still search each room, but it will take longer since we'll have to go to each one."

Ranko had been gazing at the distant figure of Thyme and frowned. "You guys go look, I think Thyme could use some back up," she said.

"Ummm… you're going to use a Ki-sharpened shinai in a fight with an undead wizard?" asked Kimiko incredulously.

"When you put it that way… it does sound stupid," admitted Ranko.

At that moment, the succubus maid on the floor groaned and said, "Two floors down, armory," as she opened her eyes. "You should be able to find a real sword there, the douchebag is so arrogant he would keep swords effective against undead there! Look for the armor with metal wings on the back; it can let you fly long enough to reach the douchebag and help rescue Cinnamon!" That was all Ranko needed to hear and she hurried out the door. "I can't tell you much else; the douchebag's magic prevents me from betraying him and his secrets. But I'm Toshi and I don't want to see Cinnamon die!"

"Just relax, we'll save her," said Hinata as she channeled healing chakra into the succubus.

(0o0o0)

Ranko opened the door to the armory she had been directed to and her jaw practically dropped. "Oh man, not even Mousse has this much weaponry out at once," she said as she beheld rows of swords, spears, axes, daggers, and other weapons. This was to say nothing of all the armor neatly arranged on stands. There was full plate, half plate, banded mail, chain mail, studded leather armor, splint mail, and even a few leather armor sets. Noticing all the weapons had a small piece of parchment below them; Ranko checked the first one near her, which read, SINGING SWORD, DO NOT USE FOR RISK OF SWORD NEVER SHUTTING UP! "Definitely not taking that one," muttered Ranko as she eyed the rest of the swords before noticing one had bright red text as if in warning. "Hmm, a holy long sword with an additional undead bane enchantment. Sounds good enough for me!" exclaimed the red head as she grabbed the blade.

"Well, this is interesting," said a voice in her head, causing Ranko's eyes to widen.

"Oh man, a talking sword, this is not good! Ranma always did say nothing good came from magical talking objects!" she groaned.

"Well, if you don't want my help in defeating the lich who killed my last owner…" the sword suggested in a sulky tone.

"I just know I'm going to regret this, but I do need help with that, so you got any special abilities I need to know about besides the undead bane and the holy enchantments?"

"Well, my last owner was a Paladin, so she couldn't use it, but I am enchanted to conduct Ki," replied the sword.

"Well, I'm a martial artist, so that's good," muttered Ranko as she started searching for the winged armor she'd been told about.

(0o0o0)

"This is getting old really fast," muttered Naruto as he ducked under another dive bomb attack. The fox boy had only made it up one story with the constant attacks from the vampire in his dire bat form and he was now officially annoyed. "Oi, come down and fight me like a man, bloodsucker!" yelled the blond. Surprisingly, the vampire complied, shifting back to his normal form and lightly landing on the side of the tower above Naruto. Naruto frowned as he didn't smell any chakra being used, then smirking as he noticed his opponent was wearing soft slippers.

"You try my patience, boy," hissed the vampire. "I'm going to drain you dry and then suck on those succulent girls you left behind after killing the other boys!"

"Says the guy who can't even stand on a wall by himself and needs a pair of magic slippers to do so!" countered Naruto. "The only thing I don't get is how you can move around in this sunlight!"

"I'm not some idiot, I've seen enough of those mortal television shows to know that revealing my weakness means you win!" replied the vampire with a smirk.

Naruto sighed as he drew Nenshousaiga, "Then I guess I'll just have to slice and dice you so badly you need to go back to your coffin to regenerate!" The vampire didn't answer except by dashing towards Naruto. However, unlike most people the vampire had faced over the centuries, Naruto was used to high speeds and met the charge head on. Nenshousaiga blazed and met a scimitar that suddenly appeared in the vampire's hands. "Magic gauntlets of storing, eh?" asked Naruto, a grin growing on his face as the vampire's eyes widened in shock. "Please, I could feel the air being displaced by the suddenly enlarged blade, not to hard for one who is sensitive to the wind like I am. Speaking of wind, Fūton: Daitoppa (Wind Style: Great Breakthrough)!" yelled Naruto as he sent a giant blast of wind at the vampire. However, the vampire phased to the side of the attack, barely ruffled by the power of the blast.

"Impressive, but not good enough!" declared the vampire before waving his hands and intoning, "Magic Missile!" Five green orbs shot out of his hands and towards Naruto, who cursed and braced himself for impact. The orbs slammed into Naruto and covered him in a cloud of smoke.

(0o0o0)

"Argh, where is this thing?" demanded Kimiko as the group hurried down from the sixth floor of the tower. The sixth floor had been sleeping quarters for Toshi, the vampire (if the coffin they found in the place of a bed was any indication, and Senik, but no phylactery. They arrived at the next room and found Ranko just finishing adjusting the armor she had donned. The winged breastplate Toshi had mentioned was easily seen, as was a pair of winged boots. The helmet Ranko had pulled on also featured little wings, though from the scroll on the shelf it had occupied this was a helmet that protected against the attacks of evil beings. "Whoa, Ranko, you look ready to go to war!" gasped the hanyou girl.

"Yeah, and I'll be going to help Thyme as soon as I open a door," replied the redhead as she checked the fit of the gloves she had grabbed before drawing her new sword and approaching the wall. "Bakusai Tenketsu!" said Ranko as she poked the wall with the sword blade, producing an explosion of rock that blasted away from the tower.

(0o0o0)

The vampire's look of glee as his magical attack hammered into Naruto turned to puzzlement as the tower wall beneath his feat cracked. He was hurled off the tower by the sudden explosion and found himself tumbling through the air as a blur shot out of the new hole and towards where his master was performing the ritual. Even worse, the smoke from his attack had cleared to reveal that the blond had survived the spell and was now attacking again. A giant shuriken shot towards the vampire, who scoffed in derision as he caught the giant curved weapon through the hole in the middle. He wasn't expecting a second giant shuriken to appear from in the shadow of the first one, though he managed to deflect the second one with his scimitar. "Bunshin Daibakuha (Clone Great Explosion)!" said Naruto as he grinned at the puzzled vampire, who only had a second to stare at the blond in confusion before the shuriken in his hand exploded.

(0o0o0)

With the wall damaged, Hinata was able to see Naruto facing the vampire outside. "Naruto might need my help, I'm sorry but you'll have to find the phylactery on your own!" she said before leaping out the door Ranko had made and landing on the wall outside, very glad Kakashi had made his whole team practice standing on a wall for up to an hour at a time to both increase their reserves and to teach them how to use chakra to keep their blood flowing regularly against gravity. Hinata charged towards the vampire as he stumbled out of the cloud of smoke created by the exploding clone, before stopping by Naruto and releasing a wave of chakra from her open palm with a cry of, "Hakke Hasangeki (Eight Trigrams Mountain Crusher)!" The chakra wave had almost reached the vampire before he turned into a gas version of himself and let the attack harmlessly pass through him before resuming solid form.

"You children are beginning to annoy me," he growled as he blurred forward, burying his fist in Naruto's stomach. The spiked gauntlet that wasn't holding his scimitar was made of jet black steel and started glowing a dark black. "Die!" hissed the vampire as the gauntlet's dark light started covering Naruto, turning him to a pile of cinders in an instant.

"SON OF A… DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT HURTS?" bellowed Naruto as he fell out from behind a window ledge where he'd slipped away after leaving a clone behind in the dust cloud. For once the blond regretted absorbing his clone's memories; the sensation of being broken apart at a molecular level was very unpleasant.

"This is getting most annoying," said the vampire with a grimace before he blurred forward and had his mouth at Hinata's neck. "One wrong move and I drain your girl dry!"

"You shouldn't have said that," said Hinata as she saw Naruto's head tilt down slightly. "Now you've really made him mad."

Hinata's statement was proven true as Naruto youki started to envelop him, However, Hinata was surprised to see Naruto's legs, arms, and head were starting to change. It was just like the time Naruko transformed in Kurotsume's lair, but this time it was even more of a humanoid fox with Naruto's head shifting to full kitsune form. "Kitsune Jūjin (Fox Beast Man Transformation)!" snarled Naruto before he blurred and whisked Hinata from the vampire's grasp by using the same rising kick Lee often used to set up for his Lotus techniques. After putting Hinata safely on the window ledge, Naruto blurred again and slammed his claws into the gauntlet the vampire had used to destroy his clone. The gauntlet held up for a minute before shattering, causing Naruto to grin at the vampire. His grin grew even more as the vampire hissed in pain as if his arm was being burned. "It's your armor, isn't it? It allows you to with stand the light of the sun!" taunted Naruto before he grabbed the storage gauntlet and ripped it from the vampire's arm. Naruto then raised his hands to the sun shining down on them and formed a Rasengan; only this one was glowing brightly as if the sun had come to rest in Naruto's hand. "Taiyou (Solar) Rasengan!" Ramming the ball of condensed sunlight chakra into the vampire, Naruto grinned as the undead screamed in pain and tried to escape, only to have Naruto toss him away from the tower and yell, "Taiyoufurea (Solar Flare)!" The vampire didn't have the time to turn to his gas form to escape the resulting pillar of sunlight that engulfed him and then winked out of existence. "Heheheh, got you there fang boy!" taunted Naruto as a bit of ash drifted to the ground before collapsing to his knees on the wall of the tower.

"Naruto-kun!" screamed Hinata as she ran to support him.

"Sorry Hinata-chan, just tired," said Naruto with a yawn that showed off his fox muzzle full of teeth. "Gathering energy from the sun is hard to do at the best of times; I can only do it thanks to my Sage training."

"You big fur ball," muttered Hinata as she stroked Naruto's muzzle.

(0o0o0)

Thyme had been relieved to see Ranko join him in battling Senik, while his spear allowed him to keep the lich at range; the lich was a very experienced fighter and didn't tire like Thyme did. Ranko was relatively fresh compared to Thyme, and her new armor and weapon made her able to both attack from unexpected directions and strike with great effect at Senik. Senik countered this with liberal use of his spells, sending Lightning Bolts and an Ice Rain at them. Thyme counted himself lucky that his father's sky dragon heritage made lightning mostly harmless to him, the initial impact could send him flying, but he would never be paralyzed by the electric current or fried by the heat. Ranko simply used everything she knew about fighting in mid air to avoid spells and counter attack, her armor making her a difficult target to hit. Senik had gotten annoyed and started busting out his higher level spells, such as Reverse Gravity and Cloudkill. The first one was relatively easy to deal with, as both Ranko and Thyme had enough control over their levitation abilities to counter the reverse of gravity, but the Cloudkill covered the battleground in poison fog, making landing hard to do except close to the still captive Cinnamon, since Senik didn't want his prize damaged before he could complete his ritual. Senik apparently cast a spell on himself to make sure he wasn't harmed by the poison, because he stayed in the center of the fog chanting.

Senik's eyes suddenly glowed brightly as he scowled at Ranko and Thyme from inside the fog. "Try these on for size! Animate Dead!" With the spell released, four skeletons clutching rusty swords and shields, while tattered cloth armor covered their bodies. Sadly for Senik, Ranko took out each skeleton with one blow. But the skeletons had held his enemies off long enough that Senik was able to get to Cinnamon and quickly slash her wrists, causing the hybrid phoenix dragon blood to spill onto the large rune stone that sat below Cinnamon, who screamed in pain. Senik only got a second to gloat, at that moment the island was lit up by a bright flash as Naruto's Taiyoufurea erupted and Senik felt the connection to his vampire minion disappear. The psychic blow was enough for Thyme to drop down like the wrath of heaven and plunge his spear through Senik's chest with the help of gravity. Ranko then appeared right in front of Senik, her sword glowing in delight at the prospect of killing the lich.

"Kogahazan (Tiger Fang Break Slash)!" yelled Ranko as she delivered an upwards slash to Senik before roundhouse kicking him and then adding in a downward slash for the coup de grace. Senik managed to raise his staff to ward off the blow, but the staff broke even as it met the sword and Ranko's slash neatly bisected the lich from his upper shoulder to waist, causing the upper part of his body to fall over in shock.

"This is impossible!" gasped Senik, even as Thyme rushed towards Cinnamon. "How could you defeat me?"

"Please, you're using a wooden staff to block a Ki enhanced sword," countered Ranko. "The others just have to find your phylactery and you're finished! Now tell me how to stop the ritual!"

Senik chuckled, even as the red light in his eye sockets started to dim. "It can't be stopped, that girl's blood, even the little bit I got, was enough to start the ritual!" As the pinpoints of scarlet light died out, the air started to crackle with energy as the rune stone levitated out from beneath Cinnamon and flew towards the Tarrasque bones below.

(0o0o0)

"I'm so glad we have you here Ryeka!" exclaimed Akira as the group left inside the tower was using the cyan haired genius's hyper dimensional armory to store all the loot they had found so far after Kimiko verified it didn't contain any evil life force. There were a few black blades from the armory that Kimiko thought might be cursed, but she didn't have time to be sure so they took everything they could find to be gone over in more detail later. They had cleared the fourth floor, which was Senik's library and taken all his research books for Gosunkugi to go over later and were now heading to the third floor. Toshi hadn't been able to give the group much information besides the fact that none of the books or personal items had curses on them.

"Yeah, but where is the phylactery?" demanded the cyan haired girl as the group reached the third floor and found themselves in what could only be a treasure room. Silver, gold, and platinum were piled up around the room, chests stood either closed or open with more coins and jewelry spilling out of them. There were several statues, plus a few weapons that were obviously more decorative than useful, being made of precious metals and covered with gems.

"Wow," said Kimiko, causing the rest of the group to nod. The hanyou girl then winced. "I can feel it, there's an evil life force somewhere in this room, but I can't tell where exactly it is!"

At that moment, Toshi gasped and slumped to the ground, shuddering. Kimiko hurriedly knelt by the succubus's side, only to blush as her nose caught the strong scent of arousal from Toshi. "Senik's body was destroyed, I'm free until he finds the ring that binds me to him!" she cried out in joy. "Hurry, find his phylactery and destroy it!"

"It will take forever to shift through all this stuff!" moaned Kimiko as she gestured to the room full of treasure.

"Well, it's not a ring or the typical box most lich use," said Toshi. "He's never revealed what he uses to me, sorry."

"That's help enough," said Ryeka as she swept all the rings, conveniently stored on a set of long sticks that allowed them to be displayed all together, into her pocket armory. "Any change Kimiko?" she asked.

Kimiko concentrated and started walking over the treasure, heading towards a statue at the back of the room. The humanoid statue appeared to be made of purple glass reinforced with steel bands around each plane of glass, giving it an appearance that it belonged in a mecha anime. Inside the statue was a complete set of crystal organs. "I think this is it, but I can't tell if it's the statue or the crystal organs…" she said.

"Well, one Bakusai Tenketsu and the whole thing cracks apart," said Akira as he walked past Kimiko to deliver the blow. Akira was so focused on finding the breaking point; he didn't notice the dull ruby eyes of the statue suddenly light up. Far faster than should have been possible, the statue lashed out and sent Akira flying back across the room even as it tried to backhand Kimiko. The young miko however, had seen the eyes glow in time to roll beneath the attack and leap away from the statue, which was apparently a golem.

"Toshi, I will punish you when I have disposed of these pests!" said Senik through the golem's head, though his voice had a weird duality to it as if the group was hearing an echo. The fact that the golem Senik now inhabited lacked a mouth or nose, with only the ruby eyes to show any expression made the situation eerily creepy to the teens.

"I'm sick of being your slave Senik, I'm never going to serve you again, I'd rather die!" yelled Toshi, a whip of dark energy appearing in her hands that lashed out at the golem, only to bounce off its raised arm.

"Maybe I should just break your mind, make you unable to control your body as it fulfills my every need!" taunted Senik. His tone changed abruptly as Hiryuu threw several ofuda onto the golem body, the talismans causing a dark smoke to rise from the glass body and Senik to scream.

"Such evil, you have bound the life force of the innocent into that golem to protect your own!" yelled Hiryuu, slamming the monk staff he carried into the floor so hard it broke the stone and stuck there. The young monk Taijiya undid the clasp that kept his monk robes tied up and then tossed them aside to reveal a traditional Taijiya armor like the sets worn by his mother and uncle, only the armored segments of his battle gear and the lining of his body suit were a dark blue that matched his monk robes. Hiryuu then reached behind his back and pulled out a small one handed getsugasan that expanded to the typical full size with a flick of the boy's wrist. With a sharp crescent blade on one end and a spade blade on the other, the weapon was well suited to a monk taijiya as something a monk would carry. "Aku Soku Zan (Swift Death to Evil)!" said the taijiya as he assumed a ready position.

"Do you seriously think that puny little blade can hurt me?" demanded Senik arrogantly, only to have Hiryuu grin. "What's so funny?" demanded the lich.

"I'm not the big threat," said Hiryuu with a smirk, just as Imiheijin (Purification Sword Blade) slashed through Senik's right arm, sending the right hand toppling to the ground. "Never take your eyes off a miko when you're undead," advised Hiryuu before slamming the spade blade into Senik's foot, trying to unbalance the golem. Akira, who had managed to recover by now, and Ryeka both dove forward, using their strength to tackle the golem as Miyuki bounced off a wall and slammed her foot into Senik's face. The loss of balance combined with the kick sent Senik crashing down on his back, where he found out the hard way that his golem body was too heavy and awkward to get upright with only one hand. "Oh dear, this isn't good… for you!" said Hiryuu as he jabbed the golem's eye crystals with the crescent blade's tips.

"I didn't think Hiryuu could be so… nasty," said Akira nervously as Hiryuu yanked the crescent blade back from the golem's eyes as Senik bellowed in pain before bringing the spade tip down on the golem's chest, a small crack forming in the glass.

"Ah yes, forgot to mention this was made by a youkai swordsmith and it can crack the toughest armor," remarked Hiryuu before jamming the spade tip into the crack and twisting the spade tip to cause cracks that spread across the golem's chest. Akira and Miyuki both raised their legs up before driving them down on the center of the cracks, shattering the remaining glass that protected the crystal organs. A rapid series of punches and kicks from all those present knocked the individual organs loose, while each of the teens took one organ and leapt away from the golem, causing Senik to scream in pain. With a quick series of blows, each crystal organ was shattered via claws, energy saber, blade, or Bakusai Tenketsu. Senik screamed in pain even as each one was destroyed, but even as Miyuki destroyed the heart last, he kept on screaming. Puzzled, the group looked at the golem, only to groan as they saw two crystal balls and a rod between the golem's legs.

Toshi rushed up to the downed golem and grinned down at Senik. "Well Senik, you've finally slipped, there's barely any life energy holding me back and now you're dead!" with that, the succubus raised her leg, which suddenly seemed to transform into a guillotine blade, before bringing it down with a shriek of splitting glass and ending Senik's unlife. "I hope you rot in hell, bastard!" she sneered at the shattered golem. However, a rumbling shook the tower cut off any other remarks. Running to the window in the treasure room wall, the group gaped as they saw the bones of the Tarrasque assembling themselves around a glowing green rune stone. "Oh F #%!" exclaimed the succubus. "The bastard actually managed to complete the ritual!"

"I'm going to be warping in some fire power," muttered Ryeka as she phased through the window, calling up her holo laptop and typing in commands rapidly as she glided a safe distance from the tower for what she had in mind. As she hit the execute command, a ship started to materialize around her, the distinctive pair of split S-foils extending from each side giving the X-wing its name. "Proton Torpedoes armed, lasers charged, shields green, four lit!" muttered Ryeka before she gasped the flight stick. "Time to see how science fares against magic!" With that, the engines roared and Ryeka put the snub fighter into motion. Reaching up and hitting a switch, she opened the comm. And said, "Red one to base, we were unable to prevent the ritual from taking place, requesting back up. Secondary mission of destroying sorcerer achieved."

There was a moment before a reply came back. "This is Red Dragon, we read your signal and are inbound. ETA: fifteen minutes."

"Roger," said Ryeka as she lined her targeting sights up on the Tarrasque's head and watched the sights go green with a target lock. "Red one beginning attack run now!" With a quick squeeze of the control stick's trigger, Ryeka sent a quad burst of red lasers at the beast, which bellowed and reached up to swat at the annoyance tormenting it.

"I'm glad she stopped it from getting any closer," said Thyme as he carefully carried his sister in his arms away from the ritual site as fast as it was safe to move her.

"Bat winged ring, bring!" muttered Cinnamon as they passed Senik's lich body, which was rapidly disintegrating as the power preserving it faded. Ranko raised one eyebrow at the demand but grabbed the only ring on the corpse's hand that had bat wings.

At that moment, Naruto landed on the cliff with Hinata clinging to his neck, having made bounced across the tree tops to reach his friends when he saw the ritual had been completed. Hinata was out of his arms in a flash and running her hands over Cinnamon, healing the cuts Senik had made and popping a blood replenishing pill into the princess's mouth. "Man, that thing is huge!" muttered Naruto as he saw the Tarrasque attempting to swat Ryeka out of the air. Biting his thumb, Naruto prepared to summon some back up. "Everyone get clear of here!"

"But Naruto, all of your summons use fire as their main offense!" exclaimed Hinata. "Gosunkugi-sensei stated that the Tarrasque was immune to fire!"

"True, but the toads also use Suiton jutsu!" yelled Naruto before slamming his hands to the ground with a cry of "Kuchiyose no jutsu: Gama clan!" the giant smoke cloud was twice the size Hinata was used to seeing when Gamabunta was summoned, but when it cleared away to reveal two large toads she realized Naruto had summoned a second toad who clutched a giant iron fork in one hand and a giant shield in the other.

"Oi, Naruto-kobun (Yakuza term), what are you doing summoning both of us at once?" asked Gamabunta.

"Sorry Oyabun, but I need you and Gamaken-Wakagashira (First Lieutenant) to help us keep that monster busy until the big guns arrive!" said Naruto, slumping to one knee at the chakra cost of summoning two of the biggest toads in the clan. He grabbed the soldier pill Hinata tossed him, quickly taking the medicine as he got back to his feet. "It's immune to fire, so I figured some Suiton techniques would be good and your weapons should be strong enough to damage it!"

"Well, he's got a point, Oyabin," said Gamaken with a sigh as the Tarrasque turned to the two large toads. "That thing does look hard for some humans to deal with…"

"Fine, Gaki, but you owe us some sake for this!" said Gamabunta as he drew his giant dosu.

"Wow, I know Jiraiya said Naruto and he could summon toads… I didn't think they were this big!" exclaimed Thyme.

"That's Naruto-kun for you," said Hinata as she moved in front of Thyme, Ranko, and Cinnamon. "Hold on, it's about to get bumpy! Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" The three older teens were surprised to find themselves suddenly shooting up into the air on the back of Suzaku.

"Well, Hinata-chan, it looks like that sorcerer got my grand chick's blood after all," said the phoenix queen as she looked at the Tarrasque.

"Hai, but Cinnamon-chan is safe with us now that I've healed her," said Hinata, causing the phoenix boss to turn her head slightly and see Thyme and Ranko supporting Cinnamon. "The rest of our group is in the tower over there," said Hinata as she pointed to the tower, only for the view to be obscured by another giant cloud of smoke. "But Naruto-kun and I are the only ninja on the island with summoning contracts," exclaimed Hinata before her eyes widened at the revealed summons.

Standing between the Tarrasque and the tower was a giant red ape with four tails lashing the air behind it furiously while Rōshi was standing between the horns on top of the ape's head. "Well, haven't seen the Yonbi no Saru for a long time," said Suzaku.

Hinata had a look of confusion as she said, "But Naruto-kun said the Yonbi is a hawk!"

Suzaku chuckled as she started to explain, "Well, she's not the original Yonbi. Originally the Yonbi was held by the fire monkey tribe, but a sickness made that guy down there the last of the clan when he was much too young to handle the responsibility. He gave up the office and went to work on preserving his clan's techniques so they would never die out among the monkey tribes. But he's one of the oldest youkai around, strong enough that he could probably fight Kyuubi to a standstill if he wanted to." Hinata was wide eyed at this, she knew just how strong Naruto's mother was, to think the giant ape could fight at that level…

"Rōshi, what's going on that you summoned me here?" asked the ape in a deep voice, a small ball of hot air coming from his mouth every time it opened.

"Well, Yonbi," the stone ninja started to say, only to hear the giant fire ape growl in annoyance. "Sorry, Onagazaru (Long Tailed Monkey), I know you don't like it but when it's serious I use your title! Now will you help those two toads and the phoenix with the giant beastie in front of us?"

"A Tarrasque? What fool woke that thing up?" demanded the former Yonbi as he walked towards the two toads, nodding slightly at them. The Tarrasque was slightly intimidated by the combination of Onagazaru and Suzaku's powers, backing up slightly like a dog eyeing a slightly bigger dog. It turned its attention to the sky as Ryeka made another pass, lasers making small burn marks that healed after a minute thanks to the monster's rapid healing.

The small distraction was all Gamabunta needed, the toad boss quickly forming some hand signs as his mouth bulged before spitting out several giant balls of water with a cry of, "Suiton: Teppodama (Water Style: Bullet) no jutsu!" the giant water balls hammered into the Tarrasque, sending it staggering backwards with a bellow, only for Gamaken's giant shield to ram into its chest, pushing it back even more.

Onagazaru took this chance and leapt forward over the toads and monster, grabbing the Tarrasque in a submission hold. Each of the beast's limbs had an arm or leg plus a tail holding it down. "Rōshi, finish it!" yelled Onagazaru at his container, who had stayed in front of the subdued beast.

"Doton: Sakuganki (Earth Style: Rock Drill) no Jutsu!" yelled Rōshi, causing a giant drill of stone to burst up from the ground, punching through the Tarrasque's stomach hide and shred its insides. The beast bellowed and collapsed as the giant ape and toad released it. "That was easy," said Rōshi with a smirk as he turned to head back to the tower, only to feel the ground rumble as the Tarrasque climbed back to its feet. "Impossible!" muttered the red headed Jounin.

"Unfortunately, this monster has a very high healing factor," said Thyme as he landed next to Rōshi with Ranko and Cinnamon behind him. "It's also immune to ranged magical attacks. But it looks like the cavalry has arrived," he continued before pointing to a large portal in the air. Out of the portal shot Flamie, while from his back leapt Inuyasha, Tenchi, Ranma, Saffron, Herb, and Kenshin. Tenchi and Inuyasha had their blades drawn and with one slash from each man, Tessaiga and the Koh-Ou-Yoku no Ken (Light hawk wing Sword) severed the beast's arms. Saffron and Herb each had one of the Phoenix Tribe's ancient weapons, the sun staff Kinjakan and the moon staff Gekkaja, while Kenshin had his own katana on his back and two large daggers in his hands. Using his speed, the ninja teacher planted a dagger in each of the Tarrasque's eyes, while the musk and Phoenix lords brought their weapons down on the beast's neck. Ranma gathered Ki into his arms before delivering a hammer fist to the monster's head, stunning it temporarily.

"Everybody get away from that thing!" bellowed Inuyasha as he raised Tessaiga in preparation for his strongest attacks. The blade became crystal and several large crystal blades seemed to grow out of it. Sensing the power of the attack, Onagazaru leapt away, followed by the toads and the four fighters on top of the beast. "Kongosoha (Adamant Barrage)!" roared Inuyasha as he sent the diamond spears forth from his sword, the crystal spears punching through the Tarrasque easily and sticking in its hide. Even as the beast bellowed in pain, Tessaiga seemed to become a black void with an image of space on the blade. "Meido Zangetsuha!" yelled Inuyasha, sending a barrage of black space blades that sliced the Tarrasque. The giant black blades reduced the Tarrasque to chunks that fell to the ground, revealing the glowing green rune stone Senik had used to raise the beast. Saffron hurled the sun shaped blade of the Kinjakan at the stone, only for it to be deflected by the barrier. Ryeka had made another pass by now and her lasers proved equally useless. Even Gamabunta's sword was bouncing off the barrier, and the pieces of the Tarrasque were starting to stir, evidently preparing to join back together and slaughter everything. "What the heck do we do?" growled Inuyasha, not since facing Naraku had he seen such a powerful barrier, not even Kongousouha made a dent in the barrier.

"Ranko, can I borrow your sword?" asked Cinnamon after slipping the bat winged ring taken from Senik's corpse onto her finger.

"What do you need it for?" asked Ranko.

"I need a weapon capable of challenging energy as a focus for the spell I'm about to try," said Cinnamon. "I am a fairly strong sorceress in my own right with the blood of two mythical races flowing in my veins, and I know a spell that can kill almost anything."

"What? You're going to use that spell? It's crazy, magic attacks are useless against that thing!" yelled Thyme.

"Ranged magical spells, but a spell delivered physically should be fine," said Cinnamon as she took the blade from Ranko and started chanting. "O, a piece of the Lord of Nightmares, free thine self from heavens bonds, O blade from the cold, dark void, become one with my power, one with my body, and let us walk this path of destruction together, shattering the souls of the Gods! RAGNA BLADE!"

All of the combatants stopped their actions as they felt an awesome power gather in Cinnamon's hands as crackling black energy formed around the sword. In the time it had taken Cinnamon to complete her chant, the Tarrasque had reformed and bellowed a challenge. Cinnamon simply shot into the air on blazing phoenix wings, even as Herb and Saffron yelled at her to stop. "You have a piece of me in you, so it's only fitting I deal the finishing blow!" yelled Cinnamon before she brought the energy blade down. The Tarrasque tried to swipe at her with its massive claws, but the blade cut right through its hand and kept glowing, slicing through the monster's whole head and then down the body. There was a flash of green energy as the rune stone was split asunder and then Cinnamon landed on the ground, the Ragna Blade fading from around the sword. Cinnamon turned and walked back to the group as the Tarrasque collapsed for good this time, only to stumble as her body reacted to having channeled so much chaos energy. Saffron and Herb seemed to teleport to her side to catch her, Herb not even noticing that stepping in a stray puddle from the water bullet had shifted him from male to female.

"That's our daughter," said Saffron in an exasperated tone, gently placing his hand on Cinnamon's forehead as Herb held her daughter tight. "Not willing to let her parents protect her and using something she wasn't ready for."

"Bull, you know I'm a chaos nexus by nature, I'm probably the only person on Earth with the knowledge and skill to summon a fraction of L-sama's power and survive," countered Cinnamon as she opened one eye to glare at Saffron, before looking at her mother. "Oka-san, I'm not going to die, please let up a little," she teased.

"Cinnamon-ojou-sama!" cried Toshi as she landed by the family.

"Hey, Toshi-chan, look what I got," said Cinnamon as she raised the bat winged ring on her hand up where the succubus could see it.

"Then you're my new mistress Ojou-sama, please take good care of me," said the Succubus as she knelt in front of Cinnamon.

"Mom, Dad, meet Toshi, I've just taken her under my service as my new familiar/lover," said Cinnamon, causing Herb to sigh.

"Your stepmother has corrupted you so much!" she declared. "Just please lock the door if the two of you are going to be frisky and put up spells to keep the noise from being heard, I don't want to walk in on you two or hear you doing that!"

"Too much info! How about we loot the tower?" said Naruto, now reverted back to his normal form and leaning slightly on Hinata even as Flamie had shrunk down to cat size and was frantically licking Kimiko.

"Can we please go home after that?" asked Akira as the rest of the teens joined them. "I think we're all worn out from today and need to relax!"

(0o0o0)

"Now this is the life!" said Akira a few days later. After everyone had recovered, since the school was still closed down due to repairing the goblin made tunnels, Principal Kuno had declared school in session at a private beach resort his family owned on a resort island. Needless to say, not much studying was being done and it was mostly a party. The Saotome boy was wearing a simple pair of blue trunks and a green t-shirt he'd apparently thrown on for comfort against the sun.

"You said it," muttered Ryeka as she sipped a coke while using her holographic laptop to watch a movie. The cyan-haired girl was wearing a red and black diagonal striped two piece that was more modest than her space pirate mother would have worn in the past, but still showed off her figure. "After all that chaos I need some R&R."

"And the scenery is nice here," said Akira as he glanced at Ryeka, only to blush as he realized he was ogling her and turning away from her, thus missing the blush and embarrassed grin she hid by taking a drink from her coke.

Miyuki giggled as she watched her brother and Ryeka, the two of them had been growing closer over the year and Miyuki was eager to start teasing her brother about the crush he had on the alien girl. The cat girl was wearing a red and white tiger striped swimsuit as she enjoyed playing in the water with her friends.

"Still watching the lovebirds?" asked Kimiko, her canine ears allowing her to hear the two love birds. The dog girl was wearing a red sarong wrap over a white one piece, something her mother jokingly called the Beach Miko outfit.

"You're one to talk, you're always staring dreamily at Hiryuu when he isn't looking and glaring at any girl who flirts with him!" countered Miyuki.

"Why, you!" yelled Kimiko as she lunged towards the cat girl, trying to pin her for a tickle attack.

"Seems like everyone is having fun," said Thyme as he hugged Ranko. The two were on a jet ski riding together. Thyme's red swim trunks with golden dragons went well with Ranko's black one piece with golden dragons.

"Well, we are usually training so hard it's hard to have fun like this," said Ranko with a smile as she snuggled against Thyme's muscular chest through his life jacket. Fighting Senik as a team had only brought the two closer together and their fake romance was now full blown. "But I haven't seen your sister and Toshi or Naruto and Hinata…" she said, scanning the beach for those familiar hair colors amidst the mass of students and teachers. She could see Hotaru-sensei cuddling with Kenshin-sensei on a beach blanket, while Keiichi-sensei and Belldandy were having a picnic with Skuld-sensei and Urd-sensei. Nuku Nuku-sensei was sunbathing nearby, a crowd of young men happy to fetch anything she needed. Gosunkugi was rubbing sun tan lotion onto Natasha's back as the succubus relaxed in the sun, though anyone nearby and able to hear through the privacy spell Gosunkugi had cast would have heard sounds more suited to a grope fest as the mage massaged his lover.

"Well, Cinnamon decided she'd rent a cabana for herself, Toshi, and Lavender," explained Thyme, pointing to a simple white tent with a sign on it that Ranko couldn't make out at the current distance. "Knowing my sister… she's got both Toshi and Lavender naked and all three are withering in passion now…"

Ranko blushed at the combination of the mental image she got as well as the feeling of something hard pressing against her bottom. "Oh my, you'd better put that sword away or else it will rust in the water!" exclaimed the red head, wiggling a bit to make sure the dragon prince got the point of her joke. She giggled as Thyme's face turned red with blood.

"And where are Naruto and Hinata? Or should I say Naruko, due to all the water around?" asked Ranko, knowing that Thyme was sharing a room with Naruto at the hotel the students were using.

"He said something about wanting to make today special for Hinata," replied the dragon prince before he suddenly turned up the speed of the jet ski and caused Ranko to shriek as they bounced across the waves.

(0o0o0)

"Naruto-kun?" asked Hinata as she knocked on the door to the room her boyfriend was sharing with Thyme. "I'm ready to go!" Hinata was wearing a dark blue dress and her Shinobi sandals at Naruto's request, though she had a swimsuit on underneath in case they wanted to go swimming after whatever Naruto had planned. He had also had her get a large hat, saying they'd be in the sun and he didn't want her to get sunburn on her face.

The door opened to reveal Naruto in his a green shirt with the Uzumaki spiral. "You look great Hinata-chan!" said Naruto as he took her hand and led her away. As soon as the elevator doors had closed behind them, the door opened again to reveal a smirking Naruko.

"Alright, operation special night is a go!" chirped the kitsune girl as she bounded off to make sure things went smoothly.

(0o0o0)

"Where are we going Naruto-kun?" asked Hinata as Naruto led her away from the rest of the school relaxing on the beach and towards a small dock.

"I decided I'd be taking you on a picnic boat ride," said Naruto as he pointed to a clone standing by a small two person row boat holding a picnic basket in its hand.

"Yo, boss, got everything ready!" said the clone with a salute. Naruto grinned and took the basket before dismissing the clone and helping Hinata into the boat before placing the basket between their seats and taking the oars himself as he sat down. Hinata kept a hand on her sun hat as Naruto rowed them out into the water, waving at Thyme and Ranko as they rode past on a jet ski. Naruto soon had the boat headed towards a rocky outcropping near the end of the beach. As they rounded the outcropping, Hinata saw a small river leading inland a bit that appeared to be their destination. (Cue Kiss the Girl from Disney's Little Mermaid) However, they didn't stop, Naruto kept rowing them through the small bayou where the river met the sea filled with reeds towards where the banks were covered in water side trees like willows. As they did, Hinata thought she could hear the faint sound of music. Unknown to the Hyuuga heiress, Naruto had clones in disguise as animals providing music based on a movie clip he'd seen online once.

As the boat reached the water beneath the trees, a light fog enveloped them. The atmosphere was positively romantic and soft voices that seemed to be the wind joined the music. Naruto kept rowing towards a clump of willow trees in the middle of the river. The long trailing tresses of the trees drew aside for the boat as if by magic, actually done by Gamakichi and Gamatatsu underwater. As the tresses closed behind the boat, a small whirlpool formed around the boat, causing it to spin as Naruto stopped rowing. Fireflies circled the boat, while Gamakichi, Gamatatsu, and several other small toads popped out of the water to circle the boat as well while spitting streams of water into the air like water. Naruto slowly leaned forward, causing Hinata's heart to race as she mimicked him and their lips met in a soft and gentle kiss. "Aishiteru, Hinata-chan!" said Naruto with a smile before rowing them out of the grotto as the whirlpool disappeared. Beyond the grotto was a small dock with a picnic ground meant for couples and Naruto already had a clone task force there to make everything perfect. Hinata found the picnic basket was a ruse and only had things like utensils and napkins inside plus a blanket for the two of them to sit on. The clones had set up a small outdoor kitchen and had apparently been cooking since as soon as Naruto and Hinata were seated under an umbrella, a clone waiter brought out a fresh cinnamon bun for each of them as an appetizer. Hinata enjoyed the treat, even though it was far from the quality she could get at a professional store or bakery, it was tasty and filled with Naruto's love for her. After the appetizer, a chicken teriyaki bento with some tempura, rice, and a small salad proved to be the main course. For dessert, Hinata nearly squealed as a Naruto clone placed a dish of professional looking zenzai in front of her with a few umeboshi to counteract the sweet flavor. Hinata took one bite and felt like she had gone to heaven. "Naruto-kun, where did you get this?" she demanded, planning to buy some more of the treat when she had the chance.

Naruto started rubbing the back of his head. "Actually, I've been using Hiraishin and clones to learn how to make this direct from Hoshiko for the last few days," he admitted. He was immediately tackle hugged by Hinata, who rained kisses all over his face.

"You spoil me, Naruto-kun," said Hinata with a smile as she sat up, enjoying the feel of his muscles under her hands before lying down on his chest and resting her cheek against his shoulder. "Aishiteru, Naruto-kun," she said.

(0o0o0)

After about an hour of hugging and kissing followed by a short nap, Naruto created a clone squad to clean up the small temporary kitchen and take the boat back while he himself formed hand signs for another jutsu. "Fuuton: Tobikumo (Flying Cloud)," said Naruto before a fluffy white cloud formed beneath Hinata and him, lifting them up into the air. (Cue A Whole New World from Disney's Aladdin) Hinata let out a gasp of surprise before they were off, soaring into the clouds and through the air.

"Naruto-kun, what if somebody sees us?" squeaked Hinata.

"A powerful kitsune genjutsu makes anyone, even electronics, think there's nothing here," said Naruto.

"But if you can do something like this, why didn't you get the best rankings in the academy?" demanded Hinata.

"Because human developed genjutsu get funky with youki added to them," said Naruto, even as the cloud went into a loop that had them upside down for a few seconds. "I could fry someone's brain very easily with a genjutsu I accidently overloaded. I'm only good with wide area genjutsu like this or ones that take lots of chakra and are almost ninjutsu due to their effects. Kitsune genjutsu are just easier and safer for me to use against humans especially if I don't want to kill someone by accident. Also, I sort of held back in the Academy for a reason."

Hinata stared at her boyfriend curiously, she knew he had never given it his all in the academy, but to hear he has a reason intrigued her. "What is the reason?" she asked.

"To be on the same team as Sasuke and you. You had the skill to be the top kunoichi and Sasuke was easily the one with the drive to take Rookie of the Year. I figured it was better setting myself up as the Dead Last. All it took was a visit to Iruka with my parents to set things up. I acted up and pulled pranks to hide my real skill so I could be with my best friend and the cutest girl in the village!" Hinata blushed at the compliment, pleased that her boyfriend would make himself seem lower in public to be on the same team as her.

As the two continued their flight, Naruto steered the cloud towards a small island nearby used by the resort as a romantic getaway for couples. It featured several small houses where a pair of newlyweds could enjoy intimate dinners in a lovely setting. And on a small hill was a miniature castle containing a ballroom and dining room plus a luxurious suite. Wedding groups enjoyed renting the island for banquets and parties with the bride and groom staying in the castle while the rest stayed in the small village below. Naruto had simply hired out the small island with some solid gold ryo to the hotel staff, who had been happy to help him with his plans. Naruto guided his cloud to where two glowing lights were waving to show him his landing spot on a balcony at the top tower of the castle. Hinata was surprised to see a kitsune woman in a pink kimono waving them in with the glowing sticks airport ground crews used to guide planes in at night. "Thank you for flying Kitsune Air, please remain seated until the cloud has come to a complete stop and then disembark. My name is Peach and I'll be your hostess tonight!" said the kitsune with a bow to Naruto and Hinata as Naruto brought the cloud to a complete stop. Hinata glanced at Naruto, who bowed and gestured for her to go first, causing a blush to color her cheeks at his chivalry. Peach led the two into the castle and from there to separate rooms. "Suitable attire has been prepared for both of you; please change into your outfits after refreshing yourselves. Dinner will be ready in an hour and the lady of the castle asks that you join her," said the vixen.

"Tell the Lady Naruko we will be glad to join her," said Naruto, causing Hinata to realize the whole thing was a continuation of the date. The couple split up to enter the rooms prepared for them, where they each found a set of new clothes waiting for them.

Hinata found a light purple dress waiting for her on the bed in her room. She took a minute to admire the silken feel of the fabric before heading to the bathroom to take a quick shower and clean up. Hinata was pleased to find the shower was supplied with her favorite shampoo and conditioner and she planned to enjoy the chance to let the water ease slightly stiff muscles. She had found one of the more creative results of Naruto's study of seals in the bathroom, a special basket that separated anything not originally part of a garment from the article of clothing using a combination of seals that left Hinata's head dizzy. But it worked and meant that things like blood or tomato sauce would not leave a lasting mark on anything. A note indicated she should place her clothes in the basket for cleaning while she showered and Hinata did so. Half an hour later, feeling ready for anything, Hinata left the bathroom and examined the dress on the bed in more depth. It appeared to be a cunning mix of eastern and western designs, with a kimono like top and a fitted bottom that showed off a girl's curves and a slit that let her legs be seen as she moved. Sitting on the pillows of the bed were two choices for Hinata, either a dark purple obi to use to cinch up the waist, or a rhinestone studded belt that appeared to come with the dress. A note between the pillows told Hinata to choose whichever she wanted, though the wording implied the writer favored the simple obi over the gaudy belt. Hinata smiled and pulled some toiletries out of her personal stuff space, glad Mousse had taught the group the technique so she could always have some things on hand. It also saved her the hassle of having to deal with security checking for liquids.

(0o0o0)

A knock at Hinata's door told her it was time for the main event and she opened the door to find the kitsune woman from earlier waiting for her. The kitsune guided Hinata to a dining room with a table set for three, where she found Naruto and Naruko waiting for her with a place setting between them. Naruto was dressed in a simple orange dress shirt and black pants, while Naruko had an orange halter dress with a sarong style skirt that left her left thigh visible when she moved her legs. Both kitsune hanyou stood as Hinata entered the room and walked over to them, a light blush adoring her cheeks as she felt the atmosphere of the room. It was very intimate, and Hinata was pretty sure the night would end in an act of passion between the two kitsune and her. This was enforced as both kitsune gave her a kiss with lots of tongue before letting her sit down. Two more kitsune swept into the room, carrying between them a large serving plate (cue Bella Note from Lady and the Tramp). "Benvenuto principe and principessas (Welcome Prince and princesses)! I'm Mario!" said the one on the right, who resembled a slightly older version of Chouji in girth and with black hair and a mustache clad in a red waiter outfit.

The second kitsune, dressed in a green waiter's outfit and both thinner and taller than the other kitsune grinned and said, "And I'm Luigi! Prepare yourself for a night of romance and wonder!" With that, the two set the plate down and lifted the cover off to reveal a giant serving of spaghetti and meatballs.

"Where are the plates?" asked Hinata, having found both western utensils and chopsticks at hand, but no dishes. Naruto also had a confused expression on his face as he looked at Naruko.

"I figured it would be more fun to eat all together. These noodles are extra long, so sometimes we'll be eating two ends of the same noodle," said the blonde vixen with a smirk as she placed a large bib over the top of her dress to protect it from spaghetti sauce, something that Naruto and Hinata mimicked. As the trio got ready, Mario swept back into the room, an accordion in his hands while Luigi followed with a mandolin in his hands. As the two kitsune brothers began to serenade the threesome, all three started eating. Rather quickly, they found that the noodles were extra long and strong, requiring a knife to cut them. This was discovered as Naruto started sucking on one particularly long noodle only to find Hinata with the other end in her mouth. Their lips brushed and both teens looked away from one another with a blush. A minute later, the same thing happened between Hinata and Naruko. Several of these 'accidental' kisses followed as the romantic dinner continued.

As soon as all the spaghetti was eaten or put away for a future meal, Naruto rose and held out his hands to Hinata, who took it and then offered her hand to Naruko with a smile. With Hinata in the middle, the two kitsune lead the way to the castle's dancing hall. There, underneath a giant chandelier, they turned and bowed to Hinata before Naruko stepped back and let Naruto take their girlfriend's hand as music filled the hall from a DJ stand Peach was manning. (Cue Beauty and the Beast). Naruto and Hinata swirled through a slow dance, Hinata's dress swirling as she twirled around. As soon as the song ended, Naruko took Naruto's place as a fast paced beat began to play. (Cue your favorite salsa music). Naruko spun Hinata around rapidly, clearly favoring a more fast paced style than her twin. This included many close brushes between Naruko and Hinata, spins, dips, and fast movements. By the end of the dance, Hinata's heart was racing, at it almost burst out of her chest as Naruto stepped forward, sandwiching Hinata between Naruko and him. Another fast song (The tango trio song from Take the Lead) started and the threesome started to tango. Naruto and Naruko used their superior strength and flexible tails to perform incredible moves with Hinata, who sometimes lost herself in the music and danced to the beat as the kitsune watched in awe. The song ended with Hinata in between the kitsune, Naruto on his knees with one hand under Hinata's leg while Naruko was pressed against her back with one hand supporting her bottom. Hinata took a deep breath before purring, "You two… wait in the bedroom for me, I need to… freshen up a bit!" and gliding out of the room, leaving a panting Naruto and Naruko.

"Oh, Kami, I wanted to ravish her so bad!" groaned Naruto.

"You and me both brother," murmured Naruko before the kitsune twins hurried to the master bedroom.

(0o0o0)

Hinata took a deep breath as she looked at herself in the mirror. "You can do this, Hinata! Urd-sensei, Natasha-sensei, and even Belldandy-sensei all assured you it would work just as Cinnamon said!" she uttered before pulling a purple crystal vial from her subspace pocket. The vial was filled with a bright pink liquid and bore the phrase ESSENCE OF SUCCUBUS in Cinnamon's handwriting, which managed to look like a flirty love letter even with only three words. Cinnamon had given Hinata the vial two nights after returning from Senik's island and told her it would be useful, along with a wink. Cinnamon had said the potion would give her the confidence to make sure her first night with Naruto was one they'd both remember for the rest of their lives and it would also eliminate the chance of an unwanted pregnancy with a simple chant. While the confidence boost would fade away, the pregnancy charm would stay with Hinata the rest of her life, making it very convenient. Cinnamon had also given Hinata a package to open only after taking the potion, which confused Hinata. Shrugging, Hinata opened the potion and drank it down, finding it tasted like spicy honey as it slid down her throat. Hinata moaned softly as warmth started to seep out of her stomach to the rest of her body and closed her eyes as she felt the potion take full effect. Running her hands over her body, Hinata smiled and opened the package Cinnamon had given her and giggled as she saw the contents after reading the note on top of them. Saying the chant to activate the birth control charm, Hinata started reading the instructions to set the package to work just as she needed.

(0o0o0)

"Do you get the feeling Hinata-chan has something planned for us?" asked Naruko as she sat in one of the chairs in the bedroom with Naruto across from her. Both kitsune were dressed in their night clothes. Naruto simply had a pair of black boxers with orange flames along the bottom edge, while Naruko was in a lacy black bra and panty combo, as well as some black lace stockings, a garter belt, black lace gloves, and an orange see through lace slip.

"Yes, she never shows off like that, she wanted us to not know what she has planned," said Naruto with a grin. "But I bet it's going to be interesting!"

"You're right," said Hinata's voice as the lights in the room went off, preventing the two kitsune from seeing anything of Hinata besides her outline in the door. "Naruko, on the bed!" ordered the heiress, causing the Kitsune girl to bolt for the large comfy bed. "Don't you dare touch yourself until I say so!" she added, making the Kitsune girl whimper, knowing this would be torture with a sweet reward following.

"And what about me, Hinata-chan?" asked Naruto with a grin on his face.

"You, Naruto-kun, are going to sit back down on that chair while I use the spell package Cinnamon-chan gave me to make this evening even better!" ordered Hinata. Naruto did as he was told and then a rush of air and light caused his eyes to close. When they opened, he was sitting at the end of a long runway off a stage, where Naruko found herself tied to the bed by silk ropes. The click of shoes from behind the bed alerted the two kitsune to Hinata's location, but when she stepped out their eyes almost popped out f their heads. She was clad in the harem dancer outfit from their adventure in Xaria's castle with several silk scarves attached to her wrists and sashaying her way to Naruko, who was licking her lips in delight.

(0o0o0)

"Dang, those three are intense," said Toshi as the spell package broke when the threesome fell asleep and gave her a sense of the intense feelings generated around it.

"I'll say, I could feel them all the way from here," said Toshi with a smile.

(0o0o0)

When Hinata woke up, she found herself snuggled up to Naruto's chest. A slight poke against her thigh and the slightly sticky feel of the sheets reminded her of the previous night's activities and she blushed. A kiss on the lips brought her out of her memory and she smiled at Naruto. "Morning, sunshine-hime," said Naruto with a smile.

"Morning, my gloriously sexy fox boy," replied Hinata, earning a raised eyebrow from Naruto.

"I see that potion is still having some effect," he said with a grin.

"Mmmmhmmm, now how about we go get cleaned up?" asked Hinata as she threw the covers off and sauntered towards the bathroom, making sure to shake her butt at Naruto, who followed her as fast as he could without running her over. Needless to say, they required two showers that morning.

(0o0o0)

"Where is everyone?" asked Hinata as she walked into the hotel with Naruko after a quick flight back to the beach. The couple had finished up their last shower with a bucket of cold water each and the kitsune hadn't bothered to change genders afterwards. They had entered the hotel for breakfast, only to find the building deserted. Several room service carts with still warm trays on them containing food were in the halls, and a few maid carts were half in and half out of rooms, allowing Naruko and Hinata to see nobody was inside the rooms. But the dining room was the big clue that this wasn't a prank by their friends. Food and dishes had fallen to the floor, drinks were spilled everywhere, and a sink in the connected kitchen was overflowing and flooding the floor.

"I have a bad feeling about this," muttered Naruko as she formed the cross shaped seal for her favorite technique. "All right girls, search the hotel for anyone who might be hiding!" she ordered. The clones darted off in two person groups while Naruko and Hinata quickly grabbed a few milk cartons and some food from the buffet, seeing no sense in possibly fighting on empty stomachs. It was a good thing they did, because fifteen minutes later an explosion from the forest surrounding the hotel caught their attention just before Naruko got a rush of memories from two of her clones being destroyed by a sneak attack. Both kunoichi ran towards the area the explosion originated in and found a strange robot standing in the middle of a clearing facing a crater. It appeared to be two armed bipedal helicopter minus the rotor and tail parts and having large hydraulic legs instead. What really caught Naruko and Hinata's attention were the 20 mm guns, two on the left arm and one on the right. The right one also featured a wider barrel that the two kunoichi were pretty sure was a bad thing (This is the ED-209 robot from Robocop). To make things worse, the robot suddenly shimmered and faded away, though Naruko's nose told her it was still there. "Kuso, stealth cloak!" yelled Naruko as the two kunoichi leapt away from their position just as the ground where they were standing was peppered by machine gun bullets. Naruto and Hinata split up, each going in a different direction. "Hinata, Byakugan any good?" yelled Naruko.

"No chakra!" Hinata yelled back as a rocket shot past her and into the trees where it exploded. The shockwave caught Hinata in mid air and sent her crashing to the middle of the ground in the clearing.

Naruto yelled, "Hinata, STAY DOWN!" as she unsheathed Nenshousaiga. "Kuuchuuhottokattohou (Hot Cutting Method)!" roared Naruko as she swung a giant blade of fire and wind chakra that toppled the trees around them. With a crash, the robot reappeared as it fell over on its back, its machine guns blazing harmlessly into the air. Naruko swung Nenshousaiga once more, slicing off the gun barrels even as a clone carried Hinata to safety. Naruko's fire chakra ignited the remaining ordinance within the robot's ammo containers and the resulting explosion was enough to destroy the robot. Naruko and Hinata cautiously advanced towards the crater the robot had been and found nothing aside from a black gem lying in the center of the crater. Naruko's clone picked the crystal up and frowned. "Smells kind of like that bitch Kuroten and that bastard Gin who kidnapped Kimiko's family," said the clone. Naruko took the crystal and was surprised when it started to glow before projecting an image in the air of a chubby kitsune in a pirate outfit.

"Hello, cousin, this is Yun of Shichinan. We've never met, but I think you'll want to join me for dinner at D point. If you don't," here the image pulled back to reveal Naruto and Hinata's friends, teachers, and classmates all trapped in crystal coffins, "then all these nice people will become the main course for my pets." The image grew even more to reveal a bunch of hungry looking polar bears in a pit beneath the hostages. "You have a day to join us, cousin, and do bring your little human pet! I'll be waiting for both of you!" With that, the image disappeared seconds before Naruko crushed the crystal to powder.

"Damn, I didn't think Shichinan could operate on this scale!" growled the vixen before glancing at Hinata.

"Naruko-chan, who is this Shichinan?" asked the kunoichi with a slight glare at her beloved for keeping information from her.

"Apparently my seven cousins on mom's side are all evil bastards and nogitsune. They want to defeat me and take the title of heir of the Kitsune clan from me so one of them will be in charge when Oka-san has had enough of the title and passes it on or dies. Kuroten was one, as was Gin. We didn't tell you because we didn't want you to worry about them on top of everything else." Naruko instantly knew she said the wrong thing as Hinata's eyes narrowed.

"I'm very disappointed in Naruto and you, Naruko. You say I'm your mate and yet you keep secrets from me!" she exclaimed, turning away from Naruko with her arms crossed. Almost instantly, Naruko was groveling in front of Hinata.

"Please don't hate us, Hinata-oujo-sama! We didn't think they'd try something so soon after we defeated Kuroten!" begged Naruko. "We have kitsune searching for any information on them available, but beyond what Ero-sennin brought us we don't know anything yet!"

Hinata sighed, it was hard to resist the teary eyes Naruko was giving her and her Byakugan showed the kitsune girl was sincere. "All right, I'll forgive you. But what's this D Point?"

Naruto sighed in relief and climbed back to her feet with a frown on her face. "I have no idea, Oka-san made me learn a list of all important kitsune locations on earth and it isn't one of them."

"That's because it was the site of the revived Dark Kingdom," said Kenshin's voice as he dropped out of the trees in front of the two kunoichi. "Hotaru told me about it, but I don't know exactly where it is. And one of those robots got her with a crystal sphere that created a crystal coffin around her before teleporting her away." The ninja teacher had evidently been fighting hard, as a bandage was around his arm and blood was seeping through it, as well as several tears in his clothes. "The robots have been capturing everyone they could; I only escaped being captured because I was getting a drink for Hotaru. Smaller humanoid robots went inside the hotel and captured everyone in there. The three of us are the only ones left at the resort."

Hinata immediately moved to begin tending to Kenshin's wounds as Naruko scowled. "So how are we supposed to find the location of D Point?" asked Naruko.

Kenshin nodded his thanks to Hinata for patching his wounds before grimacing. "I'll have a helicopter get us and take us to Azabu-Juuban and we'll ask the only other people who know the location… the Sailor Senshi."

**And that's a wrap. I hope you all enjoyed the fights and lemons. I'm quite proud of this lemon, plus I'm pretty sure it's unique in the details I used.**


	9. Trial 8: Youkai vs Youma Ninja vs Pirate

**I don't own Naruto, if I did Madara would not be able to dodge attacks from behind and Sakura would have stopped being a kunoichi long ago, or at least have taken the job more seriously.**

"Are you sure this is the place?" asked Naruto as he stared at the steps leading up to a shrine. A small sign declared the shrine as the Hikawa Shrine. Naruto and Hinata could both sense a powerful miko aura from the shrine and the kitsune was hesitant to enter the sacred grounds.

"Yes, Hotaru told me that if I needed help from the Senshi and she wasn't available, I should come here," said Kenshin. He was dressed in his official uniform to try to keep things from blowing out of proportion, but he had a feeling that with Naruto it would happen anyway.

As the trio reached the top of the shrine steps, two ravens that had been perched on the temple tori took one look at Naruto and took off cawing. "Phobos, Deimos, what's wrong?" asked a voice before what was apparently the head priestess of the shrine stepped out of the main building. She was very pretty, with long black hair and wearing the traditional robes of the head priestess of a Shinto shrine. She smiled as she saw the three visitors, but her eyes narrowed as they focused on Naruto. With a practiced motion, she pulled some ofuda from the sleeves of her robes and chanted, "Rin, Pyou, Tou, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen! Akuryo Taisan" before hurling the ofuda at Naruto. The kitsune boy's eyes widened as he sensed the power within the slips of paper and he barely dived aside from being hit by them.

"What the hell is your problem, lady?" yelled Naruto.

The priestess's eyes narrowed as she countered, "As if you need to ask, you filthy youkai! How dare you enter this sacred place?"

"Look, you old hag, if I didn't need to, I wouldn't be here!" snarled Naruto, before instantly realizing he said the wrong thing as the priestess's hair seemed to rise up from a giant inferno behind her.

"Mars Crystal Power, Make Up!" yelled the priestess as she raised a small rod into the air. Streamers of red energy surrounded the priestess before transforming into an elaborate red sailor fuku. "In the name of Mars, I'm going to punish you in high heels!" yelled the newly revealed Senshi, only to see a Naruto shaped dust cloud as the kitsune ran for his life. "Come back here, you little brat!" roared Sailor Mars before taking off after Naruto, ignoring Kenshin and Hinata.

"I love that kitsune, but he can be such an idiot!" groaned Hinata as she put her hands to her face.

"True, but at least we know we came to the right place," said Kenshin with a sigh as they chased after the kitsune and Senshi.

(0o0o0)

"Mars Flame Sniper!" yelled Mars, sending an arrow of flame at Naruto that the kitsune narrowly dodged using a street light as a pivot to swing away from the attack. "Come back here, you little pest!" shrieked Mars, her anger not diminishing despite several misses like this.

"And become a pincushion? No thanks, Lady!" snapped Naruto as he ran past a bakery with a tall brown haired woman cleaning a table outside.

As Naruto rounded the corner, he heard a door slam closed followed by a faint shout of "Jupiter Crystal Power, Make Up!" Naruto groaned as a second Senshi joined the chase with a cry of "Jupiter Oak Evolution!" that sent several green balls of energy at him.

"I just had to go and open my big mouth!" groaned Naruto before the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

"Deep Submerge!" yelled a voice as a blue green sphere came at Naruto from the left from a turquoise haired Senshi.

"World Shaking!" yelled another voice as a yellow sphere came at Naruto from the right from a tall sandy haired Senshi with a sword at her waist.

"Kuso!" yelled Naruto before using a burst of wind chakra to blast himself up and avoid the explosion of the two attacks colliding. Naruto sighed as yet two more Senshi joined the chase. Five minutes later, he had managed to attract another one, this one a blue haired one that luckily hadn't attacked him yet, but appeared to be the brains of the group since she was calling out strategies to the rest. "Will you please leave me alone?" yelled Naruto as he avoided another Flame Sniper attack.

"Come back here and die!" yelled the sandy haired Senshi as she darted out of a side street with her sword drawn. The red blade of the sword met Nenshousaiga and both fighters strained against each other. Seeing the rest of the Senshi catching up, Naruto used his tails to trip his opponent and threw her at the rest, causing a brief pileup and giving Naruto enough time to bite his thumbs and apply the blood to a seal on his sneakers. With a puff of smoke, Naruto was now wearing roller blades and he took off, staying low to present a harder target. As the Senshi mob chased him into a park, Naruto grinned at the sight of a long stairway down the hillside park. Leaping into the air, Naruto landed on the hand rail of the steps and started grinding down. Turning his head, he saw the Senshi momentarily skid to a halt at the sight of his already being so far down the hill. Looking ahead, Naruto noticed a gap in the rails and leapt over it to resume grinding. While the Senshi could leap after him, they had to be careful of their landings and make sure they didn't fall down the steps.

"Looks like I'm going to make it," muttered Naruto as he zipped around a corner on the rail, only to see two blonde haired Senshi and a man in a tuxedo, top hat, and mask at the bottom of the hill. "Great!" groaned Naruto, seeing the odango haired Senshi winding up for what was probably a finishing attack, Naruto kept his eyes on the long-haired blonde and the tuxedo clad man. He almost felt insulted with the tuxedo wearing man sending a barrage of roses towards him in the hopes of pinning him down. Naruto instead caught all the roses and threw them back with a chakra boost, pinning the tuxedo wearer down instead. Naruto then jumped over the heart-shaped energy blast the long haired blonde sent at him and used a kawarimi to escape the giant pink heart the odango haired Senshi sent at him. Using the confusion of the Senshi at his disappearance, Naruto tried to catch his breath.

"Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!" was the only warning Naruto had before a blast of cold water slammed into him after punching through the trees he was hiding behind.

Naruko scowled as she climbed to her feet. "Alright, I've had it with this!" she yelled as she stomped towards the stunned Senshi and stopped in front of the red skirted one. "Look, I'm sorry my brother insulted you, he's been under a lot of stress today and your sudden attack on him didn't help! But can you please listen to us?" at this moment, Hinata and Kenshin dropped down and stalked towards Naruko.

"Naruko, can't you keep Naruto from opening his big mouth at the wrong times?" asked Hinata between deep breaths. It was clear that it had taken a lot for Kenshin and her to keep up with the magically enhanced Senshi and the kitsune boy.

"Sorry Hinata-chan, but I can't control anything until I get hit by cold water..." said Naruko, not voicing that she didn't think the Senshi would have listened until she somehow shocked them into listening.

"Regardless, I'm a friend of Sailor Saturn and she's been captured by an enemy who left us instructions to come to D Point. Please tell us where it is!" said Kenshin.

"It's at the North Pole," said a new voice as a dark skinned Senshi with green hair spoke up from behind the odango haired Senshi, who leapt into the arms of the tuxedo clad man with a cry of surprise.

"Pluto, don't do that!" she shrieked as she climbed out of the man's arms with a blush.

"Forgive me, Princess, but time is of the essence if we want to save Saturn," said Pluto, before tapping the giant key shaped staff she carried against the ground. Almost instantly, the Senshi and the three ninja found themselves in front of an ornate set of doors in a black void. "Here at the Space-Time Door, we can take as long as we need to talk without being interrupted and then step back out at D Point instantly with plenty of time left." Turning to the three ninja, she said, "Please explain what happened to Saturn."

(0o0o0)

After a quick series of introductions and explanations, Sailor Mercury fiddled with her palm top computer and projected an image in the air everyone could see showing an underground cavern. "We originally fought the Dark Kingdom about 16 years ago," said the blue haired Senshi. "Their hit and run tactics were annoying but we finally managed to track down their location at D Point in the North Pole. It's basically a huge underground cavern where Queen Metalia was housed. However, when Sailor Moon used the Silver Crystal and destroyed Beryl and Metalia, the whole place started to collapse."

"Well, somehow my demented cousin has a base there," said Naruto, having changed back with some hot water as a demonstration of Jusenkyo. "And that's where he's holding our friends and Hotaru-sensei!" Seeing the looks of surprise on the faces of the Senshi, the kitsune snorted and said, "That disguise magic might hide your faces from me, but your scents stay the same. And you," here he pointed at Sailor Mars, "transformed right in front of us!"

"I knew his mother at one point, a Kitsune's senses are as good as he says," said Pluto.

"My cousin also has some weird robots working for him," said Naruto.

"Robots…" muttered Sailor Mars, staring at Naruto in surprise. "Why would a youkai use robots???"

"My cousins are all much older than me, they've had years to grasp technology and master it," said Naruto grimly. "The robot we faced is not as advanced as some examples, but it was a perfect war machine. Kenshin-sensei says there were more humanoid ones too… obviously my cousin has been planning this for a while, at least since I defeated Kuroten."

"Well, if we go through the portals I create we don't lose any time and can catch them by surprise," said Pluto.

"Maybe, but I want to get some backup," replied Naruto.

(0o0o0)

Jiraiya grinned as he sat across from Rōshi. The red headed Iwa ninja had rented a room in Nerima and was currently visiting Jiraiya to trade stories about the past. While many would find the sight of Jiraiya sitting down chatting with the one man who could have killed his apprentice during the Third Great Shinobi War, others who knew the Sannin well knew that if Ken said a person was okay, Jiraiya treated them like a friend. Add in the fact that Rōshi didn't really like the way the current Tsuchikage Ōnoki ruled Iwagakure, hence why he spent so much time away from the village. Both men were enjoying some sake when a portal appeared in the middle of the yard and Naruto stepped out followed by a woman in an outfit that had Jiraiya in full blown Ero-sennin mode, only for Naruto's serious voice as the young ninja said, "Ero-sennin, Rōshi-san, we need your help!" to sober Jiraiya up.

(0o0o0)

"I see," said Rōshi once Naruto had explained everything. "Kidnapped friends, a dastardly pirate, and killer robots… sounds fun, I'm in!" Jiraiya simply nodded. He liked all of Naruto's friends, especially since raging teen hormones meant they were interested in his books after the sex scenes were removed to make them appropriate for teenage readers. Cinnamon had actually bought the entire uncut series direct from Jiraiya and paid extra to get each book signed. She had offered to pose nude for him as an incentive, but Jiraiya was satisfied with making a lifelong fan and getting paid.

"Great, my clones should have gotten some other heavy hitters," said Naruto before a loud knock on the door announced the arrival of Tenchi, Ryoko, Ayeka, Washu, and Kagome. All four parents and the one grandmother were dressed for war. Ryoko had on her space pirate suit with Ryo-oh-ki on her shoulder, while Tenchi and Ayeka had their Jurai battle armor on. Washu was wearing a power suit right out of some sci-fi anime, while Kagome was in full warrior miko mode with a bow that practically leaked spiritual energy from the wood and string while the quiver of arrows on her back was brimming with pink light.

"Where is the bastard who has my daughter?" snarled Kagome.

"He is hiding at the North Pole," answered Naruto, causing the newly arrived adults to look at him. "Sailor Pluto can explain better than I can about that…"

Sailor Pluto stepped forward and explained everything she knew about the situation. "Unfortunately, wards around D Point prevent us from teleporting right in and me from viewing the area with my powers," said the guardian of time and space.

"Too bad that robot you and Hinata fought exploded, I could have learned something from studying it," muttered Washu.

"I'm sure we'll find more for you to examine mom, let's just rescue Ryeka and the others," said Ryoko.

"If everyone will follow me, I will send us as close to D Point as I can," said Pluto as she opened a portal to a snowy landscape. The adults, Senshi, Naruto, and Hinata stepped through, though the Inner Senshi cringed a bit due to the bad memories of their first time coming here.

"Ugh, I still have nightmares about this place!" muttered Sailor Moon, remembering how the Inner Senshi sacrificed themselves one by one to allow her to fight Beryl and Metallia.

Washu had her holographic laptop out and was examining an infrared scan of the area around them. "Well, I think I found their base, but I need some secondary confirmation," said the redhead genius after a few moments, causing everyone who knew her to stare at her admitting she wasn't sure about something. Glancing at Sailor Mercury, Washu asked, "You're the brains of the Senshi according to the papers; do you have a scanner or something?"

Mercury nodded and activated a visor that slid across her eyes and held up her palm top sized computer. "Yes, as I gained more experience I gained access to magically hidden satellites around Earth that allow me to scan for magic and youma. What should I be looking for?"

"See this giant infrared signature?" asked Washu as she pointed to a large red rectangle. It was some distance from their present location and there was a large iceberg between them. "I think that's where we'll find everyone, but magic is a bit out of my expertise…"

"Hmm," said Mercury as she fiddled with her computer. "Well, it appears to be a giant submersible type vehicle, possibly capable of atmospheric flight. It's warded from most magical and mechanical forms of detection. I can't get past the wards protecting the inside, but there are definitely life forms inside!"

"So… the question is, how do we get a giant submarine to surface?" asked Sailor Jupiter.

At that moment, cracks appeared on the ice and several strange robots shot up through the ice and surrounded the group. Each robot appeared to be a giant eye one top of four supporting legs with wires snaking back under the ice. Each of the robot eyes started glowing as panels around their rims opened up. "Scatter!" yelled Naruto before the whole group leapt away, allowing the eyes to each unleash a giant laser beam. The crisscrossing beams destroyed the laser cannons, but a swarm of new robots popped out of the ice to take their place. These new robots were about the size of a man's head and featured a flat head, a spinning blade, and a small tail that appeared to be a hovering device. With four robots per human, the group was forced to split up as they dodged the razor sharp blades shot at them. The little robots proved unusually tough, plus their ability to change directions on a dime allowed them to avoid the attacks of the Senshi, ninja, and other adults. A second group of robots then flew around the iceberg and these proved more dangerous. Resembling a small dinosaur head with a pair of mini guns slung underneath. There were enough of these new robots that with six robots total for the humans, they were kept from teaming up. This was especially bad for the Senshi, who were used to working as a team. The ninja and aliens fared a bit better, with shuriken, kunai, and energy blasts from Naruto, Kenshin, Hinata, and Ryoko taking down robots while Ayeka used her energy shield to protect herself and keep the robots busy long enough for Tenchi to slash them apart.

One by one, the robots fell to ninja weaponry, energy blasts, magical attacks, arrows, claws, and jutsu. But the robots had done their job, distracting the group from an incoming projectile. A giant red ball burst above the group, sending a red gas down around them. Everyone found themselves feeling drained of energy and collapsed, Naruto, Kagome, Ryoko, Ayeka, and Tenchi taking the longest but still falling as the mist sent them into a deep sleep.

(0o0o0)

Naruto woke up in a prison cell. A glance around the cell told him kitsune seals were up to keep him from channeling enough chakra to bust out. Naruto sighed and grimaced. "I hate this trick," he muttered before pulling a hair from one of his tails. With a miniscule amount of chakra, Naruto now had the perfect lock pick and soon freed himself from his cell.

"Well done cousin," said a voice and Naruto spotted a speaker on the wall above him. "Welcome to the Shumokuzame (Hammerhead shark)! You actually got out of there with less effort than I expected."

"I'm just full of surprises," said Naruto. "Now release my friends and I'll try to convince Oka-san to leave you with two tails instead of killing you!"

"Now now, I invited you to dinner and it's past time to eat!" said Yun's voice before a panel slid into the wall to reveal a nice suit while a door opened to reveal a bathroom. "Please clean yourself up and get dressed, we're waiting for you in the dining room, just follow the glowing lines outside the door!"

A quick wash and change later, Naruto was following a glowing green line into a large dining room with a raised dais. On the dais was a table holding three people, only one of which Naruto recognized.

Naruto glared at Yun, taking in the older kitsune. With eight tails, Yun was definitely going to be a challenge. He walked with the grace of a swashbuckler. Clad in a classical pirate outfit that managed to conceal his girth, Yun was an imposing figure and the cutlass and dao strapped to his sides helped enhance that. What ruined the image for Naruto was the cockatoo perched on Yun's shoulder with a large white spot underneath it.

Seated to Yun's left was a redheaded woman in a red top with billowy sleeves, black belt with straps hanging down to form a skirt, and red pants.

On Yun's right was a blond man in a grey military style uniform with red trim, brown boots and belt, and white dress gloves.

Beneath the dais were two smaller tables. At one sat the Senshi and Tuxedo Kamen, with Hotaru having joined them. All the girls were dressed in long flowing gowns fit for a ball, but the slim golden chains on their arms prevented them from leaving the table.

The other table contained the rescue party, plus Inuyasha. All of them had the same chain bracelets on their arms and Naruto considered it a point to the chains' strength if Inuyasha and Ryoko couldn't break them despite the struggle they were making. But one thing was missing.

"Where is Hinata-chan?" demanded Naruto. "If you've hurt her, then I don't care what it takes, I'll rip your tails off and stuff them down your throat!"

"Patience, cousin," said Yun with a smirk, "Your little pet is safe… for now!" with a gesture, a large screen behind him turned on and showed a view of a different room. It had the appearance of a kitchen from hell. Hooks holding hunks of meat were everywhere with blood dripping from them, blood stained knives were on each counter top surface, and pots boiled with unpleasant looking contents. But the only thing that had Naruto's attention was the image of Hinata suspended from a chain above a boiling pot. "I've heard from some dragons that young maiden is a most tender dish," said Yun with a smirk complete with eye smile. As Yun's eyes opened, Naruto's fist crashed into his face and sent the pirate kitsune crashing backwards onto his back. Naruto leapt forward to finish the nogitsune off, only to have a blast of dark energy and a flame blast hit him from either side.

"Eudial, Jadeite, thank you," said Yun as he climbed to his feet and stalked towards Naruto, the cockatoo flapping back down to its perch. "Well cousin, it appears you are in a bit of a twist," said Yun. "Relax, I won't hurt the girl unless you fail the tests I've got for you! Sit down and eat and we'll discuss them!" Naruto glared but took a seat at the only unoccupied spot on the rescue party's table, which put him close to the center of the room.

Several pirates then filed in with covered dishes, placing them in front of the 'guests' and removing the covers to reveal a variety of sea food dishes. Nobody seemed surprised as Naruto brought his nose close to the plate in front of him and sniffed deeply. What did surprise them was that he grabbed the dish and flung it at his cousin, narrowly missing the cockatoo on Yun's shoulder. "Some host, serving me poisoned fish!" snarled Naruto as Yun whipped sauce from his shoulder. "And don't even get me started on the odors I'm catching from the other dishes!" Everyone else pushed their plates away, though Sailor Mars and Tuxedo Mask barely managed to grab Sailor Moon's plate before she dug into it.

"Very good," said Yun, waving his hands for a second set of dishes to be brought in. "You've passed the first test and I swear on my tails that nothing more will be attempted during the meal!"

"And Inari will strike you down if your words are false," said Naruto before sniffing the new dish. Finding no traces of anything nasty, Naruto nodded and the rest of the group started eating.

(0o0o0)

"Now, your second test," said Yun as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. "There is an iceberg nearby where a particularly nasty white dragon has a lair. Exterminate it and bring me the treasure horde and you gain the freedom of the more normal students from the school. You'll get your ninja equipment and weapons to give yourself a sporting chance. In particular, look for a crystal in the shape of a water drop with a black pearl in the center."

Naruto nodded in silence, relieved he'd be getting his gear back. He'd felt vulnerable with Nenshousaiga gone and he was comforted by its familiar weight as he slid it back onto his back. "So I just have to kill the dragon and bring you their treasure horde in a sealing scroll?" asked Naruto.

"Yes, but this is an ancient white dragon named Csarivhizzik, even a full blooded seven tailed kitsune would need to be careful," said Yun. "To be fair, you may choose one companion to help you."

"I choose Cinnamon, the Phoenix Princess," said Naruto. Yun nodded and Cinnamon's crystal coffin was quickly brought in and the princess released. Naruto quickly explained the situation to her and Cinnamon agreed to the deal, though the scowl on her face showed her opinion of the situation.

"We'll drop you off at the entrance with one of our mini subs, but we won't come back until you fire this flare from the top of the iceberg," said Yun as he tossed Naruto a flare gun. "Also, use this storage scroll; it's organized by common items to make it easier to sort treasure." Naruto caught the scroll, noting it was of kitsune design and not human. The two were then led off for their task as Yun smirked.

(0o0o0)

"So why did you choose me?" asked Cinnamon as she surveyed the entrance to the iceberg lair with Naruto after the mini sub had dropped them off.

"You've got spells that can kill a dragon, right?" asked Naruto with one eye brow raised. Both teens were dressed in warm winter clothing Naruto had pulled from emergency mission supplies. "Plus, you're a phoenix; this should be a piece of cake for you and me!" The two made their way into the iceberg, only to find themselves face to face with their quarry as she appeared to be heading out to hunt some dinner.

Naruto and Cinnamon stared at Csarivhizzik across a cave carved into the iceberg with icy stalagmites hanging from the ceiling. The dragon was 55 feet long, 12 feet high, and weighed quite a bit as cracked ice radiated out from under each of her legs. "What were you saying about this being easy?" hissed Cinnamon in Naruto's ear as Csarivhizzik got over her surprise and used her wings to send a gust of wind at them. Cinnamon was knocked over by the gust catching her wings and fell on her back, while Naruto stuck in place with chakra. As soon as the wind faded away, Naruto dashed forward, his chakra allowing him to move on the ice like it was solid ground, before sliding underneath Csarivhizzik's belly. As he did so, he unsheathed Nenshousaiga and made a long cut down the dragon's chest. Naruto nearly lost his grip on Nenshousaiga as the katana bounced against the edge of the dragon's rib bones.

Cinnamon managed to get to her feet and cast the first spell that came to mind. "Oh, source of all power. Light which burns beyond crimson, let thy power gather in my hand. Fireball!" As she chanted, a ball of flame grew in between her hands. Making sure Naruto was clear of the blast radius, Cinnamon hurled the flaming sphere at Csarivhizzik, who had focused her attention on the phoenix princess just then. The fireball exploded right in the white dragon's face, causing her to bellow in pain. The bellow became a screech as Naruto used wind and flame chakra to slice two feet of her tail off. Enraged, the dragon swatted Naruto with her slightly shorter tail as Nenshousaiga had kept going and gotten stuck in the icy floor after it melted over. Naruto was separated from his sword and crashed into the icy cavern wall before laying still.

With Naruto out of the way, Cinnamon started gathering magic for a big spell. But Csarivhizzik's mouth suddenly opened wide and unleashed a cone of cold that engulfed Cinnamon and left her as a frozen statue. Snorting in contempt, Csarivhizzik turned and raised her clawed forefoot to end the kitsune's life. Bringing the claw down on the unconscious kitsune, Csarivhizzik blinked in surprise as her claws were buried in a large chunk of ice. A surge of power behind her had her swing her head around just in time to see Naruto getting to his feet. "Kitsune Jūjin (Fox Beast Man Transformation)!" said Naruto before he blurred forward. Wind chakra enhanced claws tore through Csarivhizzik's right wing before Naruto reappeared on the cavern wall. At that moment, Cinnamon's icy coffin was engulfed in flame before she broke free.

"Rune Flare!" yelled Cinnamon, unleashing a barrage of fire energy spears that slammed into Csarivhizzik's left side. The dragon bellowed in pain once more and lunged towards Cinnamon, only to have the phoenix princess take to the air to avoid the attack.

Naruto used the distraction to grab Nenshousaiga and appeared above Csarivhizzik, swinging the blade with wind chakra howling around it. The white dragon's head bounced along the ground as her body collapsed, the head rolling to a stop at Cinnamon's feet. Naruto whipped out a scroll and hurriedly sealed the body and head into it before shoving the scroll into his subspace armory where Yun wouldn't be able to find it. "Come on, we've still got to find the treasure horde," said Naruto as he shifted back to normal, panting a bit from using the transformation.

"Why are you so tired? You weren't the last time you used that jutsu and that was after fighting and using other jutsu," Cinnamon asked as they walked through the cave, finding a path that lead up into the glacier and one that led down.

"Before, I had enough time to gather nature chakra for a little longer, so my body wasn't as stressed by the sudden transformation so rapidly," said Naruto with a scowl. "This time, I only had a few seconds while you kept her busy, so the transformation didn't last long. Eventually, I'll be able to keep it up longer, but for now it's limited." Cinnamon nodded before pointing at the lower passage. "Why this one?" asked Naruto.

"Your nose must be suffering from a cold; there is a faint chemical odor this way, meaning the dragon spends lots of time down there. The upper room is likely food storage, but a dragon spends most of their time on their horde," explained Cinnamon. Naruto nodded, letting the dragon expert lead the way. Both teens froze as they entered the chamber after a short hike down and saw a massive pile of treasure. There had to be at least 100,000 coins making up the dragon's bed, with lots of diamonds scattered throughout. Around the edges of the cavern were several ship figureheads, slightly rotten from the damp, but several were still lovely and would make fine pieces in a museum, barnacle encrusted chests retrieved from shipwrecks, pearls from the ocean's depths, precious gems, a few statues, some suits of armor, various weapons, a large stack of narwhale horns, and a giant shark skeleton frozen in the ceiling. "Whoa, this even makes mom and dad's treasuries look plain," said Cinnamon.

Naruto started looking at the storage scroll Yun had given him and gulped deeply. "Oh crud, this will take a while…" he muttered as he pulled out a brush and ink.

(0o0o0)

Two hours later, the flare was fired off and a mini sub approached the iceberg, where Naruto and Cinnamon waited, Naruto holding the storage scroll Yun had given him. Naruto also had the tip of Csarivhizzik's tail in his hands as well as the crystal with the black pearl in it. "Took you long enough," said the pirate in charge of the mini sub, a fish youkai resembling a saw-nosed shark. "Captain was getting hungry and was starting to eye your friends," he continued, only to have Naruto grab him and slam him against the wall of the sub.

"Listen good saw-nose, if he's so much as hurt one of my friends I'll be summoning my mother to judge him herself, honor be dammed!" hissed Naruto before sitting down in a chair with Cinnamon beside him.

(0o0o0)

"Very good," said Yun as he examined the scroll, which automatically gave a short list of everything sealed within it for him to examine. The kitsune pirate placed the necklace the crystal dangled from around his neck and said, "Your next test is to duel with my three highest fighters, starting with my second mate, Josie!"

A black haired woman stepped forward, her body clad in a black body hugging suit made of silk. Strapped about her on bandoleers were a large number of daggers. Most were meant for throwing like kunai, though several had hand guards that implied they were for melee combat. Naruto swiped a bit of blood on a tab of his winter gear, changing it into a leather body suit with arm guards (Ryu Hayabusa's outfit from the Xbox Ninja Gaiden). Seals at his waist glowed before he placed Nenshousaiga over them, the seals acting like magnets to hold the sheath in the perfect position for battōjutsu and Naruto's other techniques. "We shall proceed to the arena where the rest of your schoolmates are waiting," said Yun as he pointed to a portal that evidently leads to the arena. It appeared to be a mock up of the famous Roman Colosseum. Aside from Naruto's immediate friends, all his classmates and teachers plus the Senshi appeared in the seats. His friends then appeared, their bodies still encased in crystal but their heads free so they could watch. Yun was in what would be the emperor's box, but Naruto ignored him in favor of the sight of Hinata being held by a collar around her neck by a brunette kitsune pirate vixen.

Naruto forced himself to take his eyes away from his captive mate and focused on Josie as she leveled a stare at him. Suddenly her hand shifted a bit and Naruto barely ducked a thrown dagger that came dangerously close to his neck. 'I didn't even see her grab it!' thought Naruto as he threw himself to the side, barely missing more daggers. Hurling a kunai in reply, Naruto frowned as Josie easily caught it. Grabbing some shuriken, Naruto hurled them with a cry of, "Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" the five throwing stars became fifty and Josie's eyes widened before she smirked. Two feet from Naruto, the cloned shuriken disappeared in puffs of smoke and Josie easily caught the original five, tucking them into her belt.

"I forgot to mention, ninjutsu will not work except for right in front of you," said Yun with a smirk. "Techniques like Kawarimi, Henge, and Shunshin still work, but as you saw, the distance a clone can get from you is very little." Naruto scowled before having to dodge another barrage of daggers from Josie. Naruto kept running as the pirate woman's arms became blurs and she threw dagger after dagger at him. Naruto managed to use Shunshin and Kawarimi to avoid all the attacks, sighing in relief when Josie had run out of throwing daggers. The sixth sense that all ninja develop suddenly started screaming and Naruto barely managed to channel chakra to his feet for a massive leap into the air as the daggers Josie had scattered around the arena shot towards him. The throwing daggers made a pincushion of the ground where Naruto had been, but his sudden leap had taken Josie by surprise. Naruto's eyes also caught something from his new vantage point.

"Guren Kaina (Arm of Crimson Flame)!" yelled Naruto as he plummeted back down. The red flame surrounded his arm as he punched the ground, a pillar of fire engulfing his landing spot. Josie's face instantly gained a worried expression, especially when small streaks of fire shot towards her. Josie leapt away, letting the burning threads she had been holding fall to the ground. "Spider silk so thin only a burning flame can show where it is!" said Naruto as the flames died down around him. "And the speed at which your arms move… that's three arms fused into one on each side, tripling your speed and power. Am I right, Tsuchigumo??"

Josie's face gained a foul look before her body started bulging. Soon, the beautiful female form was gone, replaced with an oni headed monster with the body of a tiger and the legs of a spider. "I'm going to suck every drop of blood from your body boy!" hissed the spider youkai as she loomed over Naruto.

"Big words from a BUG!" said Naruto with a smirk. He dashed to the side as Josie's fist crashed down where he used to be, then ducked and rolled under one of her combat daggers, which had grown with her and were easily the size of katana blades. 'One hit from those and I'm split in half!' thought Naruto. What followed next was a bit embarrassing for Naruto as he ran around the arena like a chicken with its head cut off as he tried to avoid Josie's giant blades. Finally skidding to a stop, Naruto panted as he stood in front of Josie. The spider woman raised her blade to bring it down on Naruto.

"Any last words, little boy?" she asked.

"Tsume no Kazejuu (Claws of the Wind Beast)!" yelled another Naruto as he erupted from the ground beneath Josie, using claws of wind chakra over his hand to hamstring her. Caught completely off her guard, the Tsuchigumo toppled face down in the arena, finding Naruto suddenly right in front of her with a Rasengan right against her head. "Game over, spidey!" said Naruto.

"Very impressive," said Yun before gesturing to Josie, who resumed her human form and exited the stadium, only to be replaced by the uniformed man named Jadeite. "Time for round two, my tactician, Jadeite!"

"This is hardly worth my time," said Jadeite with a smirk as he formed a sword of dark energy. He easily used it to block the kunai and shuriken Naruto hurled at him before retaliating with a blast of black energy that swerved to follow Naruto even as he dodged it before engulfing him in a large explosion. Jadeite, sure he had finished off his opponent, closed his eyes and smirked, only to have his face bashed in as Naruto used Shunshin to appear right in front of him and delivered a haymaker to the Dark General's nose.

"I'd say this is more of waste of my time," said Naruto, a kunai at Jadeite's neck with the point slightly digging in and drawing a slight bit of blood. "If this is the best the Dark Kingdom had to offer, it's no wonder five barely-trained magical girls managed to defeat you! I've seen twelve year olds who could put up a better fight!" Left unsaid was that those children were generally from Shinobi clans and trained to fight from an early age.

Jadeite scowled at the jab, while all the Senshi laughed at him, before teleporting out of Naruto's grasp. The dark general raised his hand and five glowing pentagrams appeared in front of him. "Arise DD Girls!" ordered Jadeite, causing the Inner Senshi to cry out.

"That's impossible! We defeated them so Sailor Moon could fight Beryl at the cost of our lives!!" Yelled Mars as five beings rose out of the pentagrams. They were each a different color, red, purple, blue, pink, and green and had various hair styles. All five had moth like antenna on their heads, cuffs on their arms, and dragonfly like wings. Four of them were wearing or had skin in the markings of two piece bathing suits while the middle one had a tiara and a one piece bathing suit or markings with a diamond cut out that started just below her throat and went down to her hips to expose quite a bit of cleavage. (For reference pics, search for DDgirls sailor Moon on Google images)

"Hootcha! Now those are some girls I wouldn't mind fighting!" yelled Jiraiya, only to have a kunai impact in between his eyes handle first from Naruto.

Naruto's eyed narrowed as his senses started screaming at him as three of the youma girls flew into the air together and formed a triangle. A giant fire ball suddenly appeared in the air above him, the heat causing sweat to break out over his forehead. Naruto countered with a giant blast of fox fire, only to feel no real resistance as the ball of fox fire punched through the fireball. However, all that was driven from Naruto's mind as the fire disappeared to reveal Hinata hanging from a chain in mid air. She was covered in light cuts that were bleeding a little bit, while bruises covered her body. Suddenly, electricity traveled down the chain and started zapping Hinata as she withered in agony. Charging forward, Naruto was about to severe the chain, only to see Hinata's eyes turn orange before tentacle shot out of her chest and wrapped around him. Four more sets of tentacles erupted from the ground, trapping Naruto. The illusion of Hinata faded and revealed the blonde leader of the youma; the tentacles were actually her arms. The other four rose out of the ground until all five were right around Naruto. Then electricity started shooting down the tentacles and into Naruto. The hanyou boy screamed as he was shocked before slumping over. The leader grinned as she got in Naruto's face, only to receive a head butt from the kitsune, destroying the jewel on her tiara. At the same moment, chakra leapt up around Naruto and shredded the tentacles holding him immobile. To everyone's surprise, Naruto didn't fall back to the ground; he remained in the air as he let out a roar. Wind chakra swirled around the blond, keeping him aloft.

"Ok, who let Naruto watch Dragon Ball Z?" asked Akira.

Flames erupted around Nenshousaiga as Naruto assumed a dashing pose before blurring forward. An after image of his slashing each of the DD girls was briefly seen before he came to a stop behind them and said, "Kaen Bakushin Giri (Flame Dash Slash)!" and sheathed Nenshousaiga, which caused all five youma to burst into flames and fall to the ground as piles of ash.

Jadeite's eyes were wide as his minions were defeated so easily, he then blinked as Naruto landed on the ground in front of him. Dashing forward, Jadeite prepared to slice Naruto's head off, only to see the kitsune hanyou assume a battōjutsu stance. "You're mine!" yelled Jaedite as he slashed at Naruto.

"Rokutou no Warutsu (Six Sword Waltz)!" said Naruto before unleashing a lightning fast draw. "Ichi: Fire!" The fire around Nenshousaiga deflected the dark energy sword and burned Jadeite. Naruto turned the upward slash into a downwards one as wind gathered around the blade. "Ni: Wind!" The wind fanned the flames, making Jadeite scream. "San: Lightning!" Now Nenshousaiga resembled Kakashi's Raikiri as Naruto spun around to strike Jadeite from the right. "Yon: Earth!" the blade suddenly grew heavier as Naruto put the power of stone into his blow to Jadeite's left side with a second spin. "Go: Water!" A sheath of fast moving water around the blade increased the damage of the cut as Naruto slashed Jadeite in the back after a flip over a clumsy swipe with the dark general's sword. "Roku: Youkai!" with the final strike, Naruto flipped back in front of Jadeite and buried Nenshousaiga in the dark general's chest, blood seeping out through the man's uniform before he screamed in pain as youki exploded through his body. His screaming was cut off as Naruto brought Nenshousaiga around once more and severed his head before kicking it right at Yun like a soccer ball. "Who's next?" growled Naruto as he sheathed his blade.

Yun was clearly shaken by the loss of his subordinate and Jadeite's head landing in his lap, but he glanced at Eudial, who faded away. Naruto had to dodge a white van with a black star on the side that roared out of the contestant entrance to the arena. Naruto's eyes narrowed as he saw Eudial with a psycho grin on her face behind the wheel before she floored the accelerator and tried to run him over a few more times, only to have Naruto dodge each attempt. "Why won't you just die?" growled with former member of the Witches Five through the car's window.

"Your car fu is too weak to defeat me," said Naruto with a smirk.

"Oh yeah?" asked Eudial before pulling a lever in the van. It immediately started shifting and shortly became a robot battle suit that was twice the size of Naruto. The right arm had a large gun barrel attached to it with a flicker of flame dancing at the end while the left arm was slightly bigger than the right. Said left arm suddenly started spinning and transformed into a giant drill as Eudial tried to skewer her smaller blond foe with a charging dash. Naruto barely dodged away from the spinning hand as it attempted to punch through him. The large hole the drill-like hand left in the ground left little doubt that if it hit Naruto he would be shredded.

'Well, let's see how she likes this!' thought Naruto as he bit his thumb and made some hand seals before slamming his hands onto the ground with a cry of "Kuchiyose no jutsu: Sankyoudai (Three Sisters)!" Three clouds of smoke erupted in front of him and when they faded away three kitsune were standing before Naruto. One was a humanoid fox with bright yellow fur, purple arm guards, and no other clothes. The second wore the robes of a Taoist and had a large paintbrush staff in her hand. The final one wore golden armor with purple arm and leg armor and carried a Buddhist staff. "Ladies, sorry to bother you, but I need a little back up against this so called Witch," said Naruto. "Rena, you're with me on offense, Tao and Sakuya, back us up!"

"Hai, Naruto-sama!" said the three kitsune.

In his seat, Yun gritted his teeth. The three sisters Naruto had summoned were some of the most powerful one tailed kitsune in existence; if they were all with the hanyou when he fought Yun then Naruto would triumph easily. "Eudial, kill them all now!" yelled Yun as he slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair, causing his cockatoo to squawk and another white stain to appear on his coat's back.

Eudial grinned as the exhaust pipes on the back of her armor roared before she charged forward with a shoulder tackle. All four kitsune leapt away, Rena sticking by Naruto while the other two kept their backs to the arena wall upon landing. "Time to turn up the heat!" said Eudial before raising her armor's right arm and unleashing a stream of fire at Naruto and Rena.

"Talisman Sphere!" yelled Sakuya, creating a crystal sphere barrier around Naruto and Rena. As the flames died, the barrier started to crack from the inside.

"Bakusai Tenketsu!" yelled Naruto's voice before the dome exploded in a shower of crystal shards at Eudial's mecha. Eudial smirked at the seemingly ineffective attack, only to see Rena appear amidst the shards with blue flames around her hands and feet.

"Touhakken (Wisteria Punch)!" yelled the yellow kitsune before unleashing a barrage of punches and kicks on the front of the mecha, which quickly began to look like it got in a fight with a monster truck and lost.

Rena leapt clear as several red talismans were thrown at the mecha by Tao. "Kofuusatsu (Fox Sealing Paper)!" said the robed kitsune as she formed a handsign, causing the talismans to glow, and the mecha to freeze.

"Izuna!" said Sakuya, releasing four lesser kitsune spirits, each one imbued with the power of fire, water, wind or lightning from tubes on her belt. The four fox spirits struck the mecha, with the wind spirit creating a tornado to lift it up, the lightning and water kitsune combined to cover the mecha in electrified water, causing Eudial to panic as the armor's instruments started sparking. The fire kitsune struck last, reducing the mecha to slag after Eudial leapt clear, a large box with a black star on it in her hands.

"I was hoping to save this, but it looks like I haven't got a choice! Come forth, Sailor Slayer!" yelled Eudial as the box emitted pink smoke before releasing a female form. In a flash of light, the figure was revealed. It was a dark skinned girl with white hair, red eyes, and an all black Senshi fuku with grey ribbons and bows. Instead of the usual Senshi tiara, a single black star was in the center of her chest bow and a pair of pair of black star earrings hung from her ears. But the thing that had Naruto's attention was the sinister scythe in her hand. The blade was edged on both sides, allowing the girl to slice with a back swing, while some small notches near the top of the handle allowed for a few small blades that would tear a larger enemy as the scythe cut into them.

"Well, at least you didn't try to flash me," said Naruto as Rena assumed a defensive stance beside him.

Sailor Slayer simply smirked before swinging her scythe and sending a sickly green energy wave from the blade that missed Naruto and Rena. However, a scream behind them caused the two kitsune to spin around and see Sakuya kneeling over Tao, who was face down on the ground with blood pooling beneath her. The golden armored kitsune wasted no time in grabbing her sister and retreating to the realm of the Kitsune. "You bitch!" roared Rena as fox fire erupted around her before she charged at the dark Senshi despite Naruto's cry for her to wait. Sailor Slayer slashed at Rena, only for the kitsune to leap back to avoid the attack before charging forward once more. "That weapon leaves you vulnerable!" snarled Rena, only to gasp as Sailor Slayer spun with the miss and buried the point of the scythe in Rena's back. Rena disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving Naruto all alone against the scythe wielding Senshi imitation.

"Just great," muttered Naruto. "I've got to fight an anti-magical girl!"

"Don't forget about me!" said Eudial as she appeared behind Naruto with a strange gun and fired a blast of dark energy in the shape of a star at him. Naruto's eyes widened as a pink crystal shot out of his chest before he collapsed to the ground. "Excellent, a very powerful pure heart crystal," said the witch with a smirk as she picked up the crystal and prepared to walk away from the lifeless Naruto. However, a sudden grip on her foot caused her to turn to see Naruto, now female, climbing to her feet.

"Sorry, but my brother needs that, so give it back before you get hurt!" growled Naruko.

Eudial scowled and her free foot shot out to hit Naruko in the face, knocking the vixen to the ground. "And what can you do about it? I don't know how you transformed and survived, but you're much too weak to hurt me!" taunted Eudial.

"It's a good thing our body is used to switching when one of us loses control due to being splashed, I was able to trigger the transformation with a chakra surge and stop you. And it's not me you should be worried about," said Naruko with a smirk before a loud crack was heard through the stadium as Hinata snapped off her bindings and shunshined down to deliver a palm strike to Eudial that sent the witch sprawling on the ground and dropping the crystal from Naruto, which Hinata picked up. Hinata charged towards Eudial to finish her off, only to have to dodge Sailor Slayer's scythe. The evil Senshi grinned as she spun the scythe rapidly to force Hinata away from her creator. Hinata suddenly tripped over some debris left from the DD girls' hiding below ground, falling onto her back as Naruto's crystal went flying into the air and leaving herself open to a vicious downward stab from Sailor Slayer.

A loud clang echoed through the arena as Naruko appeared, Nenshousaiga held over her head to block the blow aimed at Hinata. "Round two bitch! Now I've got Naruto back, and we're not playing around!" growled the kitsune. "I've got her, Hime; you take the mad scientist over there!" Hinata nodded and dashed towards Eudial while Naruko pushed Sailor Slayer back away from Hinata.

"Right!" said Hinata as she focused on Eudial. She frowned as Eudial raised another gun and aimed it at her.

"Fire Buster Mk. 5!" yelled the former member of the Witches Five as a giant flame blast shot towards Hinata.

"Suiton: Suijinheki (Water Style: Water Encampment Wall)!" yelled Hinata as she flipped through hand seals before pulling moisture from the air with her chakra. While not on the level of the Nidaime Hokage, the abundance of water in the air made it easy for Hinata to gather what she needed at a low chakra cost. Using the steam that resulted from the clash of water and fire as cover, Hinata dashed aside and tried to attack the witch from the side where the flamethrower partially blocked her vision. The witch apparently anticipated that move though as she smacked Hinata away with the barrel of her weapon. However, on impact with the ground, Hinata turned into a log and Eudial felt a massive blow to her back. "You're in range of my divination!" declared Hinata as she assumed the Jyuuken stance and the eight trigrams seal appeared beneath her, paralyzing Eudial. "Hyaku Retsushō (Hundred Palms of Fury)!" said Hinata before sprinting forward and delivering a hundred rapid palm strikes to Eudial that sent the witch crashing into the arena wall.

"Just what is that scythe made of?" demanded Naruko as she broke the blade lock with Sailor Slayer and leapt back from the daimon, three kunai thrown towards Eudial preventing the monster from taking advantage of the opening as she had to defend her creator. Naruko sprinted forward and made a dashing swing that the daimon raised her scythe to block, only for the wind chakra Naruko had channeled around her sword to slice through the scythe easily and chop off one of Sailor Slayer's arms. The daimon shrieked in pain before Naruko rammed into her with a shoulder tackle, sending the daimon crashing beside its creator.

"You stupid idiot, why haven't you killed her?" snarled Eudial.

Sailor Slayer scowled as she held the stump where her arm used to be before grinning evilly. Before Eudial could react, the black star on the daimon's forehead glowed and shot a black star beam at Eudial, causing a black crystal to rise out of her chest. Eudial's face grew pale, but before she could do anything, Sailor Slayer had grabbed the dark crystal and swallowed it. Black lightning crackled around the daimon before she was covered in a swirl of energy. It dissipated to reveal the severed arm had been replaced by a large serrated scythe blade, while her remaining arm had transformed to match it. In addition, the Senshi boots she wore were now black armor with a wicked blade sticking out from the toe and on either side of the heel. Another blade curved up from each knee, while the fuku had morphed to a black steel cuirass molded to her body and a skull mask covered her face. Two black wings also erupted from her back, each edge glinting in the arctic sunlight with a razor sharp edge. Sailor Slayer moaned erotically as she grinned at Naruko and Hinata. "Mmmm, so much power, I'll enjoy adding your Pure Heart Crystals to it!"

"I don't think so!" yelled Naruko before she let her fox fire ignite around Nenshousaiga and started pressing Sailor Slayer back. The transformed Daimon wasn't used to all her new abilities and was forced on the defensive as Naruko kept her from experimenting with them.

Up in the stands, Ranma's eyes narrowed as he starred at Naruto. Akane gripped her husband's arm, having figured out what was going on as well. "She's forcing the blade freak into a spiral," muttered Ranma. "But with them both fighting like that… where will she get the cold ki she needs to launch the dragon?"

"Look at her feet," said Herb, "Each step leaves a wet indent on the ground, she's generating both forces by herself!" Ranma focused on Naruko's foot prints and saw the dragon prince was right, plus he noticed something else.

"Not just wet… they're frozen!" hissed Ranma. Down below, Naruko appeared to miss a blow and Sailor Slayer took the opening, driving her bladed arms towards the blonde kitsune.

"Game over!" yelled the Daimon, only to see Naruko break out in a grin.

"Yeah, for you!" she taunted as Nenshousaiga blocked both the scythe arms before taking a step back and making Sailor Slayer stumble forward. "Hiryū Shōten Ha Kirite (Flying Dragon Ascension Strike Cutter)!" yelled Naruko as she swung Nenshousaiga upward. Sailor Slayer only had a moment to stare in confusion before she was swept up in a whirlwind of cutting wind. The Daimon screamed as her armor was ripped apart by wind blades, only to have her scream shut off as Naruto appeared above her and drove Nenshousaiga through her stomach as the winds died down. "Akuma Shinka Chouin (Fiend Sacred Flame Sealing)!" yelled Naruko as the two plummeted to the ground, fox fire bursting out of Sailor Slayer's eyes, mouth, nose, and ears as they fell. The dust cloud from their landing cleared to reveal Naruko standing over a pile of charcoal that blew away in a sudden breeze, leaving Nenshousaiga embedded in the ground.

"Whoa," said Sailor Moon, having seen quite a few monsters turn into dust, but never so brutally. Sailor Mars was shaking at the thought of the power Naruto could have turned on her if they had fought at the shrine, while the rest of the Senshi aside from Saturn were staring with wide eyes.

"Alright, Cousin, get down here and we'll finish this!" said Naruko as she rested Nenshousaiga on her shoulder and looked up at Yun, who frowned.

Yun hadn't planned to actually face his cousin in combat with Naruto being in such good shape. Pressing a button on the arm rest of his chair, Yun smirked and said, "I don't think just yet," as the sound of several things walking into the arena caused Naruko and Hinata to assumed defensive stances back to back. They soon saw several squads of robots that looked like metal skeletons (Terminator robots minus human disguises) stomping into the arena. Even worse, coming up behind them were several of the large robots they had faced at the resort.

"Kunai Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" yelled Naruko as she hurled five kunai, causing fifty to pepper the front ranks of the robots. The metal knives didn't do much against the robots, but the following Bunshin Daibakuha (Clone Great Explosion) actually tossed several of the humanoid robots around while destroying those in the center of the blasts.

Ryoko sighed and flexed her arms, the chains meant to drain humans and youkai being nothing to her enhanced strength as the chains snapped. Easily freeing the rest of the rescue party, they split into two groups. The Senshi, Washu, Gosunkugi, and Natasha started herding the normal students out of the arena as quick as possible into a dimensional portal to Washu's lab, while Kagome, Kimiko, Ryeka, and Ayeka used a miko barriers and the Juraians' energy barrier to protect the fleeing students. Tenchi, Inuyasha, Ranma, and Kenshin were fighting the pirate grunts that attempted to recapture the students, while Thyme, Cinnamon, Akira, Miyuki, and Ranko had leapt into the arena and were helping Naruko and Hinata with the robots. Even little Ren-oh-ki was helping, surprising everyone but the Masaki family as she imitated a certain killer rabbit and tore the throats out of the humanoid robots, munching down on their high quality parts. It wasn't until Naruko noticed Yun had left that she realized they had been tricked.

"The bastard slipped out on us!" yelled the vixen.

"Go after him!" growled Inuyasha as a swing of Tessaiga split one of the giant robots in half. "We've got it covered here!" Naruko nodded, leaping up to Yun's seat with Hinata following her. However, they quickly ran into a problem as there were no exits visible from the box.

"Ryeka, we could use some help up here!" yelled Naruko. The cyan haired teen promptly teleported into the box and looked around. "Hack the computer in his chair and see if you can find a hidden passage!"

Ryeka had her holo laptop out in a second and was tying furiously as data scrolled across the screen. "Got it!" she cried after a second as the base of the chair made a click sound. "This drops down to carry him away to a hidden escape route!" Naruko was instantly on the seat and nodded. Then she was accelerating down a shaft, screeching to a halt in an underground cave where several vehicles stood ready. She could see Yun standing at the upper stern deck of a large three decked boat moving for open water and dashed towards the end of the harbor in hopes of catching up even as she used a seal on her winter gear to change into a wet suit that was designed for cold or warm wear. An additional seal covered her in a thick jacket, her ninja gear, cargo pants, and some thick waterproof boots. Just as Yun's boat reached the edge of the caver, Naruko leapt into the air, her sword coming within an inch of Yun's neck as he ducked under the attack. Yun's tails slammed into Naruko in the shape of a fist and sent the vixen flying towards the ice cold water, only for Naruko to use a burst of wind chakra to land on a piece of floating ice. She scowled at the smirk Yun tossed back at her as his boat left the icy hangar. Hearing the rumble of a motor behind her, Naruko spun to see a second boat rushing towards her, Ryeka at the helm and Hinata holding a tow line. Naruko grinned and bit her thumbs to place some blood on the tops of her boots, releasing a water board that Naruko tossed into the water and jumped onto as she grabbed the towline Hinata tossed her as the boat zipped past. Using chakra to help keep her grin, Naruto grinned and gave Hinata a thumbs up so the Hyuuga could signal Ryeka to catch up to Yun.

(0o0o0)

Yun sighed. He had been forced to leave most of his loot behind on the ship and would need to get it back somehow. "At least that little brat isn't going to have a clue where I'll pop up next!" muttered Yun as he took a bite out of a turkey leg only for something to catch his eye as he glanced behind him. Speeding after his boat was another, and behind it on a tow cable was the female form of his cousin. "Enemies on our stern!" roared Yun as he jumped up from the table he'd been snacking at. "Make ready the mines!" Several floating mines started falling out of a dispenser at the back of the boat, creating a small mine field for the pursuing boat to navigate through.

(0o0o0)

"Mines!" yelled Ryeka. Hinata nodded and quickly leapt to the front of the boat, kunai in her hands while activating her Byakugan. Hurling the kunai, the kunoichi smiled as she triggered the bombs ahead of time and cleared a path for Ryeka, who pumped her fist in gratitude before increasing the speed.

(0o0o0)

"Blast, cannons!" roared Yun. Two turrets rose out of slots on the lower deck of the boat and started spewing energy blasts at the pursuing boat.

(0o0o0)

"Whoa!" yelled Ryeka as she narrowly guided the boat behind an ice floe that blocked their ship from sight of Yun's boat and its attack. Looking at her radar, Ryeka saw that the two boats were racing along either side of the massive floe and would come together in a few minutes. "Hinata, we'll be catching up to them on our starboard!" she yelled so the kunoichi could signal to Naruko. Hinata relayed the message and then pulled out several kunai with explosive tags. As soon as she saw Yun's boat, she hurled the projectiles. Each kunai struck a cannon and detonated, destroying the weapon and leaving a smoking mass of metal in its place.

Yun scowled and yelled, "Mines!" releasing another batch of the floating explosives. Ryeka frowned at the sight of the mines, only to grin as Ren-oh-ki swooped overhead and planted a laser blast right in the middle of the mine field, detonating the mines.

"Looks like she finally absorbed enough components to assume ship form," said Ryeka with a smirk.

"Take that ship out!" yelled Yun before a hatch on the top of his boat opened to reveal a surface to air missile launcher. Ren-oh-ki yowled and looped off as the missiles shot towards her, countermeasures flying as she attempted to shoot down the missiles. Ryeka raised her hand and fired an energy blast that destroyed the launcher, but Yun's boat rammed into them, forcing them onto a separate channel.

"Hinata, we've got a problem!" yelled Ryeka as the radar beeped loudly. Looking ahead, Hinata saw the channel turned into a dead end.

"I've got it!" yelled Hinata as she started flipping through hand seals. "Suiton: Daibakufu (Water Style: Great Waterfall) no jutsu!" The giant column of water didn't appear in front of Hinata as usual, but beneath the boat, lifting it above the ice and over the floe to land back behind Yun's boat, with Naruko still riding behind them.

The look on Yun's face was hilarious as he saw the pursuing boat start to land safely behind his own. "Guns!" roared the nogitsune, causing two of his crew to start up mini-guns and fire on the pursuing boat.

Naruko blinked as the tow rope she was holding was severed by a lucky bullet and yelped as she found herself being left behind. Hurling a Hiraishin Kunai, Naruko flashed over to join Hinata and Ryeka as they took cover from the mini-gun assault. "Doesn't this ship have any weapons?" demanded Naruko.

Ryeka blinked before grinning and saying, "No, but I do! Take the helm!" Naruko grabbed the controls as Ryeka tapped a series of keys on a wrist version of her holo laptop and held her hands out. A large object materialized in her hands and Ryeka's grin grew as she aimed the M19 SSM Rocket Launcher she'd summoned. "Target acquired!" said Ryeka before firing. The rocket shot from the launcher and hit one of the mini-guns, sending its gunner flying into the cold water. Ryeka swiveled and her next shot hit the remaining mini-gun, whose gunner managed to see the danger and leapt clear of the weapon to avoid the blast.

Yun's anger could be felt as well as heard as he shrieked in outrage, even as more mines forced the pursuing boat to swerve into another channel for the third time. Luckily, this one was clear and the three girls thought they had Yun this time, only to swerve back into the main channel and find he had reduced speed and was behind them. A beeping sound from the control panel had Naruko cursing as she yelled, "Teme has a torpedo lock on us!"

Ryeka leapt back to the controls, trying to find a way to defend themselves, but the torpedo hit before she could figure anything out. Naruko grabbed Ryeka and Hinata at the last second and leapt as high as she could with Shunshin, only for the shockwave of the exploding boat to hit and propel them higher. However, Flamie suddenly swooped in with Kimiko on his back and the three girls landed safely on the dragon's back. "Need a lift?" asked Kimiko with a grin as she fitted an arrow to her bow.

"Yeah, drop us on the Teme and I'll finish this!" said Naruko as she made sure Nenshousaiga was sheathed for Battōjutsu. Kimiko nodded and nudged Flamie, who did a dive and bank maneuver that allowed Naruko, Hinata, and Ryeka to drop to the top of Yun's ship before gaining altitude to keep an eye on things from above. "He's mine," said Naruko as she eyed Yun. The Nogitsune was scowling at the three girls, before setting a tricorne hat firmly on his head and drawing his dao and cutlass. Naruko simply assumed a battōjutsu stance as the two kitsune started circling one another.

Faster than his bulk suggested, Yun darted forward with a series of quick jabs with his dao. Naruko ducked and weaved around all three strikes before lashing out with her foot, causing Yun to swipe at it with the cutlass. Naruko threw herself into a flip that avoided the slicing attack, then leapt back from Yun. "Impressive, cousin, but how long can you keep avoiding my blades?" asked Yun with a smirk.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" countered Naruko, sending a small squad of clones at her cousin. "And how long can you keep up with my superior numbers?" asked the blonde.

"As long as I need to!" declared Yun before blurring with surprising speed as he tore through the clones. It appeared that not only was Yun fast for his size, but he was strong as well. And as Naruko found out landing a blow to Yun's large stomach, while a valid tactic for normal thugs, just caused the impact to be absorbed by a layer of fat and left her well inside Yun's reach. Yun grinned at this and suddenly brought both his arms snapping forward, slamming his biceps into Naruko's head. The kitsune girl was stunned from the sudden impact and Yun punished her for that by slamming a knee into her to get her into the air, then grabbing her by the leg and proceeding to slam her into the deck several times before leaping into the air and spinning his arm around to slam Naruko to the deck again before landing on her with all his weight. Naruko could only let out a faint scream as all the air was forced from her body before she slumped to the deck and lay still. "Heh, looks like I win," said Yun as he smirked before turning to Ryeka and Hinata with a grin. "I think I'll have some maiden stew now!" he said as he eyed Hinata and appeared behind Ryeka, an elbow strike to the back of her head knocking her out and leaving Hinata trapped between Yun and the crew of the boat.

However, as Yun stepped towards the Hyuuga heiress, he felt something grab him and looked down to see a black and red chakra claw had wrapped itself around his leg. Turning his head, Yun found Naruko had been enveloped by a dark chakra that his nose told him was a mix of the blonde's chakra and blood. "Guahhhh!" growled Naruko, her tails lashing behind her. She suddenly charged forward, ramming into Yun and sending him flying from the boat and onto a large iceberg nearby with Naruko following and landing on all fours. Now free of distractions, Naruko slammed her paws into the ground, giant chakra hands erupting from beneath Yun and almost crushing him before he leapt clear.

Hinata's eyes widened as Naruko raised her tails over her head and chakra started forming between them. Seeing that nobody was watching her now, Hinata grabbed Ryeka and leapt up as Flamie swooped down and carried the two girls out of range for the attack Naruko was charging. It appeared Naruko was expecting this, because the chakra started gathering more quickly, forming a dark ball that the kitsune hanyou surprised everyone by swallowing. Naruko's chakra body swelled up from the power she'd absorbed before she opened her mouth and unleashed a beam of pure energy at Yun that sent him flying onto the side of the iceberg. Naruko's chakra tails lashed out, only to be knocked back by eight giant black tails that kept going and flamed Naruko down into the ice. "Naruko-chan!" yelled Hinata.

"Impressive, to think you'd force me into this form!" said Yun's voice, now deep and more sinister, as he stalked towards Naruko in his true form of a giant black eight tailed nogitsune. Raising a massive paw, Yun brought it down on Naruko, only to hiss in pain as the chakra surrounding the blonde made it impossible to touch her for long.

Suddenly, the chakra started to fade, revealing Naruto crouched in a slightly steaming pool of water created by the chakra heating up the ice. The necklace of the Shodaime Hokage around his neck was glowing brightly, having finally overcome the dark youki Naruko had been emitting. "Good thing Naruko gave me plenty of time to recover after she snagged my dropped hear crystal, now it's round two asshole!" yelled Naruto before leaping up onto Yun's head. "Tachikaze (Wind Cutter)!" yelled Naruto as a blade of wind appeared around his entire arm. Unlike Suna's Kaze no Yaiba (Blade of Wind) jutsu, this jutsu was used with punches and kicks as opposed to sword like attacks. Naruto delivered a vicious punch across Yun's left eye, the wind blade cutting deep into the nogitsune and causing him to bellow in pain. "Looks like the pirate needs an eye patch!" said Naruto before leaping clear as Yun attempted to swat him with a tail and accidentally smacked the new injury. Naruto grinned before gathering chakra into his leg and bringing it down hard on Yun's nose, causing the nogitsune's head to slam into the ice. Seizing his chance, Naruto dove towards Yun's left rear leg and raised his hand. Nenshousaiga flew into the grip of its master and Naruto swung the sword with a cry of, "Kuuchuuhottokattohou (Hot Cutting Method)!" as a giant fire and wind blade surrounded Nenshousaiga, easily slicing through Yun's leg and up into the air. Naruto spun with the blow and as Yun struggled to regain his balance with the loss of one limb, Naruto flipped over him and sliced off Yun's right front paw.

Having lost two limbs, Yun crashed to the ground howling in pain before revering back to human form, still minus his left eye, left leg, and right hand. Naruto started to walk towards him, only for the Nogitsune to somehow fight past the pain and pull a gun from inside his jacket. Hinata screamed as Naruto stumbled backwards as the gun went off, only to sigh in relief as he'd used Hari Jizō (Needle Guardian) on one of his tails to deflect the bullet before darting forward and crushing the gun after knocking it out of Yun's hand. "You bastard!" growled Yun before Naruto slammed a seal onto his forehead that knocked the nogitsune out.

"My parents were happily married before they had me, thank you very much!" growled Naruto as Flamie swooped down to pick him up and bring him back to his friends.

(0o0o0)

Back at the arena, Washu and Kagome were tending to the few wounded with Hotaru's help. Swarms of people in mystical robes and Special Forces gear were swarming around the arena while Gosunkugi was talking to a man with shaggy hair wearing robes and holding a wand in his hand. "Bloody hell, Gos, you weren't kidding when you said this was big! It's going to take weeks to sort this out!" said the man while rubbing his head.

"I know, Harry, but the magical world has always had a hard time reacting to terrorist attacks; you know how badly your ministry fared against that megalomaniac you took out!" said Gosunkugi.

"True, I think we can blame this on terrorists testing out bombs and start a mad scramble by the Muggles to hunt them down, maybe even find that bloody git Bin Laden," said Harry.

"Doesn't help he's got his own country's wizards helping him hide, right?" asked Gosunkugi.

Harry simply nodded before looking up as a red headed woman came up to him. "Everything clear, love?" he asked fondly.

The redhead smiled and nodded, looking up as Flamie appeared over the stadium wall, back winging to land and let Naruto, Hinata, Ryeka, and Kimiko off before shrinking back down to his puppy sized form and jumping into Kimiko's arms to lick her face. "Yes, all the students are accounted for and we've found some stuff the Ministry will be glad to get. We might need Hermione to translate some runes, but other than that just standard stuff Bill's department can handle."

Gosunkugi waved Naruto over and said, "This is the bane of my normal life, Uzumaki Naruto. Naruto, I'd like you to meet the head of the British Magical Law Enforcement Harry Potter and his wife Ginny, head of the Curse Breaker Department. His other wife Luna is at home watching their kids."

"Wait, _THE_ HARRY POTTER? THE BOY WHO LIVED?" asked Kimiko as she ran up to them, her ears having caught the whole conversation.

"You've read the books about me, haven't you?" said Harry with a sigh. Kimiko simply nodded, prompting Harry to say, "Rowling took quite a few liberties with the books. For one thing, Tonks and Lupin didn't die, Fred was only stunned and woke up acting like a zombie to scare his mother, and I did not defeat Moldywart with a single disarming spell, I fought him for a good ten minutes before he fired off the Killing Curse after Fawkes appeared to encourage me. I'm also not ashamed to admit I kicked Snape in the crotch before he died for all the grief he gave me!"

"Sugoi!" squealed Kimiko.

Ginny laughed at her husband's exasperated look and after promising to send Kimiko a signed copy of all seven books, dragged her husband off to resume work.

"Man, I can't wait to get home," groaned Naruto as he sank to the ground. "All that youki is really causing my system to act up!"

Hinata frowned and activated her Byakugan before cracking her fingers. Naruto started to turn around, only to have Hinata's hands close on his shoulders and start massaging his Tenketsu. Little wisps of youki escaped from various parts of Naruto's body as Hinata gently poured healing chakra into his chakra system to purge it of the excess. "How does that feel, Naruto-kun?" she asked.

"Hinata-chan, if I weren't already in love with you, I would be now!" murmured Naruto before his eyes closed and he fell asleep in Hinata's arms.

"Rest well, Naruto-kun," said Hinata with a smile.

(0o0o0)

"How much rum did I drink?" groaned Yun as he woke up, only to find one of his eyes refused to open. Putting his hand to his head, the nogitsune found he was wearing an eye patch. He also found he was missing one hand and it had been replaced by a simple clamp. One of his legs had also been replaced by cold metal. "That little runt, I'm going to kill him!" growled Yun.

"Get in line!" sneered a voice Yun hadn't heard in a while. Turning, the pirate nogitsune found himself starting through the bars of a cell at Gin.

"And take a bath, the smell is bad enough in here without you adding to it!" said Kuroten from her own cell.

"Great, a family reunion," said Yun with a sigh.

(0o0o0)

Omake: Kitsune Ninja Z

Naruto cupped his hands together by his waist, gathering his chakra as he chanted, "Rasenhameha (Spiral Destructive wave)!" before thrusting his hands forward at the last syllable. A Rasengan surrounded by two smaller Rasengan orbiting it shot from Naruto's hands and slammed into the five DD Girls, who all screamed as the chakra orbs detonated and wiped them from existence. Naruto then body flickered to Jadeite and proceeded to pummel him into the ground.

"My god…. His power it's over NINE THOUSAAAAAAAND!"!" yelled Sailor Mercury, earning her funny looks from her friends. "What? I've always wanted to say that!" said the Senshi of Ice.

Omake: Magical Kunoichi

"Oh man, that was freaky!" muttered Sailor Moon before noticing a frown on Tuxedo Mask's face. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"I can feel the earth responding to Naruko and Hinata," muttered Tuxedo Mask. Pulling two roses from nowhere, he suddenly tossed them at the two kunoichi. As the roses touched their targets, they were enveloped in pillars of light. The light faded away to reveal Naruko and Hinata dressed in Senshi fuku featuring the colors of their respective outfits.

"I'm going to kill him!" growled Naruko, appalled to find herself in such a girly outfit against her will. "You hear me tux boy? I'm going to make it so you can't be having any kids for a good long time!" Tuxedo Mask blanched at the threat, even as Sailor Moon started wailing about how this meant no more fun times in bed

"This is embarrassing," muttered Hinata, as the Senshi fuku showed way more skin than she liked.

"Ero-sennin, keep thinking with your brain!" roared Naruko as a fox fire ball of righteous feminine fury blasted the notebook the super pervert had whipped out and started writing in.

**Well, that's that. Sorry for the wait, real life has to be taken care of. On a positive note, my new shift leaves me more free time to write and read, plus I'm playing D&D now on one of my days off.**


	10. Trial 9: Miss Nerima

**I only own my OCs, I do not own any of the songs that are mentioned later aside from the ones I include in full in the story. Big thanks to JediMistress for all the little details about the Jpop industry I was clueless about.**

Naruto opened his eyes and frowned as he looked at the pair of massive toad statues flanking a large cage. "Come on out!" he growled. A giant beast stirred within the confines of the cage and slowly walked towards the bars separating itself from Naruto.

"I was wondering when you would show up," said the figure as it resolved itself into a black five tailed kitsune with red eyes and blood dripping from its fangs and claws.

"Looks like reforging Nenshousaiga cut you down a bit," said Naruto as he scowled at the manifestation of his youkai rage.

Naruko appeared behind Naruto and glared at the dark kitsune. "You could have killed Hinata-chan and Ryeka when you forced your youki through me!" she yelled.

"Like I care about those mortal girls!" growled the kitsune. Naruko and Naruto lunged towards the cage, intent on ripping the dark kitsune apart, only to have their collars grabbed to bring them up short.

"Cool it you two, if you go in there he'll tear you apart!" said a voice the twins recognized. Turning their heads, they found a dark skinned and black haired version of their mother holding them. "Sheesh, I got locked out for a few months from a rush of youki and then get knocked out when I eat the first thing that comes into my domain because I'm starving!"

"Kyu-oba-chan!" said the twins.

"Hmmm, I'm not so sure how I gained this form, but I know that if you go in that cage you'll die," said Kyu as she set the twins down. They were surprised to see that she was wearing a very conservative ninja dogi, consisting of a sleeveless upper garment, baggy pants, and arm guards. Her footwear consisted only of cloth bandages wrapped around her shins, ankles and instep.

"Well… maybe you absorbed the wild chakra the aphrodisiac created… I do remember it vanished pretty abruptly," said Naruko.

"That would explain why right after waking up I passed out from a massive hormone overload and woke up like this," said Kyu with a sigh and a slight blush on her cheeks. She found herself enveloped in a hug by Naruto and Naruko as they led her away from the cage of the screaming dark kitsune.

"Brats, get back here!" roared the evil fox.

"Shut up, furball!" Naruto yelled back. "We'll deal with you later!" The trio made their way to a bright sunny forest where large mushrooms formed a table and chairs for them.

"It's great to see you again, Oba-chan!" said Naruto with a grin after each of them had taken a seat.

"And it's nice to see you too, Naruto. Though I have to wonder about how much mental damage you've taken if you've got an alternate personality running around in here," said Kyu.

"I went through a period, and then accessed that rage youki!" exclaimed Naruto as he waved his arms frantically in the air.

"I see," said Kyu before smiling at the twins. "Well, whichever one of you is not in control of the body can stay in here with me, I'll train you in kitsune jutsu while the personality in control does something else." Both twins hugged their auntie tightly before telling her all that she had missed while unconscious.

(0o0o0)

Naruto opened his eyes and stretched as he sat up from his bed. He was instantly aware of Hinata snapping out of a doze in her chair at his side and smiled at her. "Okay, good news is that Kyu-oba-chan is awake after passing out after Naruko was formed. She'll be training Naruko and me whenever we're not in control of the body. Another bit of good news is my rage is still sealed up thanks to Ero-sennin. Bad news is it's a nasty nogitsune that wants to get loose and eat us," said Naruto.

"Nothing is ever easy, is it?" asked Hinata with a sigh before standing up and stretching, giggling as she noticed how Naruto's eyes followed her assets. That reminded her of something and she activated a privacy barrier before sitting down with a serious face. "Naruto-kun, about the other night when I got intimate with Naruko-chan and you…" she started to say before finding a finger on her lips and Naruto staring at her.

"I admit, I wasn't planning for that to happen, but when you clearly wanted to do it I went along with you, Hinata-chan. I don't think we're ready to go farther than that for a while," said Naruto. Hinata smiled and hugged her fiancé. "Besides, now that we're mates, my urges have quieted down."

Hinata blinked before gently pushing herself away from Naruto so she could look him in the eye. "What do you mean we mated?" she asked.

Naruto started to sweat before gulping and saying, "Well, at some point during that night… Naruko or I gave you a nip on your right shoulder. We're still not sure who did it first since both of us remember nibbling there, but not who did it first. Regardless, by youkai custom… we're married, mates for life."

Hinata pulled out a small hand mirror and checked her right shoulder. Sure enough, there was a small mark there, if she looked closely she could make out two lines of red dots that looked like two parentheses with their curves facing one another. "What does this mean Naruto-kun?" she asked.

"Well… for me it keeps other kitsune from getting fresh with you unless they want me to rip them apart. Other species of youkai won't go for you in an intimate way unless they feel they're stronger than me. But they would have to defeat me completely to get me to submit and allow them to that close to you. For Naruko it means she acknowledges you as her superior in the relationship and she'll submit to you unless you ask her to take charge," said Naruto.

"I see," muttered Hinata. "I do wish you'd told me about this earlier, our parents are going to freak out about this."

"I've already got a will written up in case your dad lands a Jūken strike to my head before he hears the full story," said Naruto with a sigh. Hinata giggled and dispelled the barrier so the two could leave the room. They found Jiraiya and Rōshi studying Yun's swords where they rested on the table.

"Naruto, why did you grab these? Nenshousaiga is easily a better sword than these," asked Jiraiya as he gazed at the two teens.

"One of the rules in the battle for succession in the Kitsune clan is that the loser's sword goes to the victor," said Naruto as he pulled out a scroll and unsealed a rack that already held two blades. "The top one is Yun's double bladed sword that actually is two ninjato that join together, the one below it is Kuroten's Jadoku (Snake Venom)," explained Naruto as he placed Yun's swords in the third rack down.

"Just out of curiosity, what do you do if one of your foes has a thousand blades or something?" asked Rōshi as he sipped at his sake jug.

"I seal them in a scroll and put the scroll on the rack," said Naruto as he returned the case to its storage scroll.

(0o0o0)

"Nerima Group Idol contest?" asked Naruko a few days later as she examined the flyer by the classroom door before first period. Due to the emergency fire sprinklers getting set off by an early morning explosion from the chemistry lab where Urd was mixing her latest potion, the vixen had to endure the lusty gazes of the hormone controlled boys of the school as she walked with Hinata and her friends.

"Sounds like a fanboy magnet," muttered Ranko as she scowled at the cartoon picture of five girls posed on a stage with microphone headsets on.

"It might be fun," countered Miyuki, who loved singing and dancing.

"I foresee many girls going for sexy and ending up in skanky outfits," said Akira with a groan as the group took their seats.

"Alright, class, as some of you might have noticed, the city council is sponsoring a talent show for the girls of the ward," said Ms. Hinako. "Groups are encouraged, but single performers are permitted. Anyone who feels up to it can go to the auditorium after school. There you'll audition for a chance to perform at the beach during the summer break. That event is a fundraiser for the ward, with each ticket going towards improving public facilities. Winners get a book of coupons for local shops plus a few yet to be determined prizes. Now hand in your homework and turn to page 279 of your books!"

(0o0o0)

"Why are we here?" asked Naruko as she followed Hinata and the other girls into the auditorium. "And by we, I mean me!"

"Because Hinata won't do this without you!" said Miyuki with a grin as she flicked her gaze towards Hinata.

"Awww, is Naruko afraid of showing her feminine side?" asked Cinnamon with a smirk. The dragon phoenix princess had recruited Ranko to partner with Toshi and her as a trio. Kimiko, Hinata, and Miyuki had dragged Naruko along with them, much to the amusement of Akira, who was grinning at his friend, and Thyme, who was leaning against the auditorium wall and simply watching things with a grin on his face.

"Calm down, you two, they're about to explain how this will work!" hissed Kimiko, causing the two to quiet down as Nuku Nuku stepped up to the microphone on the stage.

"Nya! Hello, everyone!" exclaimed the eternally cheerful combat android. "I'm happy to see so many of you here today! To start, fill out your names on these entry slips and we'll call you up in your groups one by one. Skuld-sensei, Gosunkugi-sensei, and I will be the judges. Each school is only allowed a certain number of entries in the contest. Part of the vote will be the audience's reaction to your performance, the rest will be the three of us. Each member of the group will receive a color coded microphone. The judges will then choose an appropriate song for that group's number of singers and you will get a chance to sing karaoke style! Everyone, please do your best!" There was excited chatter as groups formed and filled out their entry slips. Some of the groups were good, like Kasumi and Keimei as they sang Call Me What You Like by Puffy AmiYumi, while others made everyone with advanced hearing wince in pain. The reaction of Ranko, Cinnamon, and Toshi singing Kacchoiize! JAPAN by Biyuuden had everyone on their feet clapping.

Finally, it was Naruko, Hinata, Kimiko, and Miyuki's turn. The four girls took their microphones and lined up on the stage as they faced a large projector screen that would show them their lines. A catchy beat started playing and Naruko, Kimiko, and Miyuki all felt their tails start to sway with the beat. Unconsciously moving with the rhythm their bodies were setting, the three girls started to move in synch with Hinata only a half-step behind them before she started flowing seamlessly into the mix as Hinoi Team's Play with the Numbers started playing. The four girls were so wrapped up in the words they were singing that they didn't realize they had started moving until the music stopped at the end of the song and they realized they had ended with a pose as the crowd leapt to their feet with approval. All four girls blushed and hurried off the stage, watching the rest of the girls make their performances.

(0o0o0)

A figure hidden in the rafters of the auditorium scowled as it watched the girls performing. "This will be more of a challenge than I thought," whispered the figure.

(0o0o0)

"And the three groups that will be representing Furinkan at the contest will be the duo of Kasumi and Keimei, Fire and Water, the trio of Ranko, Cinnamon, and Toshi called Silken Flowers, and the quartet of Hinata, Kimiko, Miyuki, and Naruko who have yet to submit a name," said Skuld. There was applause for the three groups, though a few of the girls looked jealous.

"There are a few additional things you need to know about the contest," said Gosunkugi. "First, each member of a group must take the lead for an entire song. Second, at least one song must be entirely in English. Third, dance moves are required for all songs. Fourth, if you feel up to it, you may submit a song you wrote paired with an already existing soundtrack or create your own for a bonus round to increase your chances. The use of magical enhancements and spells to influence voting is strictly forbidden, though you can use anything else to help your acts. Good luck to all of you."

(0o0o0)

"So what are we going to name our group?" asked Miyuki as the quartet walked to the Masaki house after school. Ryeka was eager to whip up some practice songs for her friends and help them train.

"We need a name that is memorable," said Kimiko. "Kasumi and Keimei have their names that are similar; Cinnamon, Ranko, and Toshi have what sounds like an exotic dish, what do we have?"

"Three animal girls, two kunoichi, two miko, three martial artists…" muttered Hinata.

"To bad we can't make you a temporary hanyou Hinata-chan, then we could all be animal girls," suggested Naruko.

"You've already got Inu, Neko, and Kitsune…" said Thyme. "It might be easier to just make Hinata a costume that makes her look like she's not fully human. Maybe some wings?"

At that moment, everyone's danger sense went off and they leapt away from a bouquet of black roses that hit the ground where they had been stem first. The flowers released a cloud of pollen that had Naruko and Kimiko sneezing as they got a whiff of it, thought Naruko quickly used a burst of wind chakra to disperse the attack. "Impressive, so you were able to dodge that!" declared a voice above them. The friends looked up to see a girl the same age as Ranko looking down on them from up on top of a light post. However, she was dressed in a skin tight black outfit whose headpiece resembled a large rose (basically Rosemon from Digimon, but all black). "It seems I have found some worthy rivals!"

"Lady, I don't know who you are, but you're in for a world of hurt!" growled Naruko before she leapt towards the girl with Miyuki and Kimiko following. All three girls slashed with their claws, only to blink as their attacks simply sliced the overhanging part of the lamp post. The rose girl had leapt clear and lashed out with one of the thorny whips that she carried, striking Naruko's arms as the kitsune brought them up to protect her face. Naruko surprised the rose girl by grabbing the thorn whip and using it to yank her opponent into melee range. The blonde delivered a hard punch to the rose girl's stomach that ripped the vine in Naruko's grasp free and sent the mysterious attacker flying. The rose girl climbed to her feet and hurled a swarm of black petals at the group before dashing off. Naruko dashed after her with the rest of the group close behind, but their attacker apparently knew enough about the area that she was able to use one of the rose whips she carried to block off the alley she ducked into before they could catch her. The group took to the rooftops and dropped down into the alley, only to find the girl gone and a manhole cover ajar.

"Byakugan!" said Hinata as she activated her Doujutsu, only to frown and say, "I can't see her."

"Her scent is clearly going into the manhole," said Kimiko as she sniffed close to the opening, only to gag along with Naruko. "Ack, it smells horrible! There must be a leak down there!"

"No way we can catch her down there," said Thyme with a sigh. "Come on, let's go!" The teens left the alley, never noticing the small weed that started growing behind them as the last of them turned out of the alley.

(0o0o0)

"Inu, Neko, Kitsune…" muttered Miyuki as she worked on some math homework.

"Will you give it a rest?" asked Naruko as she tried to decipher some runes for Magical Awareness class. "We've got more important things to concentrate on right now than some stupid group name!"

"Calm down!" barked Kimiko as she set down a tray of snacks provided by Ryoko. "Arguing about things is pointless!"

"I agree," said Hinata as she set down the tea she had prepared for everyone. "I'm sure in two months we can think of something."

"You're right, Hinata-chan," said Naruto after using a bit of hot water to change back. The kitsune returned his attention to his text book before blinking. "Hey, these look like the seals I've used before!" he said as he put the book down on the table and pulled a scroll from his pouch. "See, these runes are very similar to some of the seal characters," he said as he opened the scroll and put the two texts beside one another. "If I'm reading these right, by combining the runes with the seals I can cause the chakra in the seals to grow as needed. With this, I can create some super seals! Just sealing a spark inside an explosive tag with the runes added and then in a month it's as strong as ten explosive tags!"

"Whoa," said Akira, having seen how much damage one of the tags could do. "But it would take a month to charge up that high, so you can't just use it in battle, right?"

"Yeah, but with this, I could create things like Baa-chan's Sōzō Saisei (Creation Rebirth) without having the massive amount of chakra control she uses!" exclaimed Naruto as he practically started bouncing up and down.

"That gives me an idea," said Hinata. "How much chakra would it store up after two months?" Naruto did some quick calculations in his head before double checking his work.

"Enough that you could probably call on a boss summons," said the blond with a grin.

"Can you apply the seal to my back?" asked Hinata.

Naruto gulped and said, "Not before having Ero-sennin check my notes, no way I will do this without permission!"

(0o0o0)

"I'm impressed, Gaki, this is genius!" said Jiraiya once he get a look at Naruto's proposed seal. "With these Konoha can become a super power beyond what we are today!"

"But is it safe to use on humans?" asked Naruto.

"Yeah, no problem there," said Jiraiya. "With these we can give even our genin a Jounin level chakra source to draw from when needed."

"Very impressive, your father will be proud," said Rōshi with a grin.

"Thanks, now what is your idea, Hinata-chan?" asked Naruto.

"You're going to seal a pair of flaming wings on my back, I'll be a phoenix and complete the group. Phoenix, Inu, Neko, Kitsune, PINK!"

"Sounds catchy," said Jiraiya with a grin as Naruto groaned at having to do the act.

(0o0o0)

The next two months were a change of routine, with the three fulltime girls forcing Naruto to turn into Naruko so they could practice their song and dance routines as well as doing the usual training. The vixen reluctantly gave it her all, though it was clear she mainly enjoyed dancing and singing with Hinata.

A month into the training period, reports started appearing in the paper of a girl in a black rose costume attacking groups who were going to participate in the contest. Everyone knew it was their mysterious attacker, who they hadn't seen at all since she escaped them. Most of her victims were paralyzed but expected to recover fully, though a few suffered from minor broken bones.

"This bitch is playing dirty, by only targeting the girls coming to the contest she's clearly saying she's going to be there," said Naruto as the group read about the latest attack at the Saotome house.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say this was Kodachi, Kuno's crazy sister who was obsessed with claiming my male side and defeating my female side," said a currently male Ranma with a shudder. "I still hear her psycho laugh in my nightmares."

"What happened to her? You never mentioned her after you graduated and went to college," asked Miyuki.

"She assaulted a guy who looked like me and got herself arrested and sent to an insane asylum," said Ranma. "It was shortly after that incident that Kuno started regaining his sanity, apparently she'd been slipping him minor bits of drugs ever since they started middle school."

"So this girl is modeling herself after a psycho?" asked Naruto.

"Seeing as Kodachi never had any kids, it seems that's the most likely assumption," said Ranma.

"So we'll just have to stay on our guard and make sure Keimei and Kasumi do the same," said Naruto.

(0o0o0)

"So that's why you wanted to talk to us," said Kasumi the next day as the two girls met the group at the Nekohanten. "I have been sensing someone unfamiliar luring around, but I thought it was just a stupid neighborhood pet."

Keimei set her cup of tea down before adding her two cents. "My family's retainers report signs of attempts to get into our house showing up; I'll inform them they need to step up security."

"I just hope we can catch this bitch before she hurts someone," said Naruto.

After a few minutes of chatting, everyone got up to leave, only to leap clear as soon as they exited the restaurant as thorny vines erupted from the ground and attempted to skewer them. "OHHHHHHH-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo!" Everyone looked across the street were they spotted the source of the disturbing laughter, the black rose girl had returned. "All of my opponents in one place, how delicious!" she said before flicking her whip to send a rain of thorns at the teens.

Naruto leapt in front of the group and swirled his tails around himself as he cried out, "Hari Jizō (Needle Guardian)!" His fur and hair instantly hardened, forming a barrier that thorns couldn't punch through easily and giving his friends time to get clear. "Kitsune bi no tate (Shield of Fox Fire)!" yelled the kitsune, consuming the rest of the thorns in a burst of blue flame.

"OHHHHHHH-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo! It appears you have more abilities than I thought!" said the rose girl, only to have to leap away from a giant mace smashing into the roof where she had been standing.

"Crazy Ribbon Girl leave… you're not Crazy Ribbon Girl!" exclaimed Shampoo, who had grabbed her bonbori as soon as she heard the laugh of the Black Rose.

"OHHHHHHH-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo! The Chinese harridan has learned proper Japanese for once!" said the rose girl. A vein throbbed on Shampoo's head and she charged forward, only to stop as her great grandmother's staff landed in front of her with the old woman on top.

"Calm down Shampoo, this is not Kodachi," said the old woman. "Her aura is similar, but more like your aura is similar to your mother's."

"But Kodachi never had any children!" exclaimed Shampoo. "The medical exam before she was sentenced said so!"

"Indeed, but this girl is not entirely human," said Cologne. "She's more like a humanoid plant."

The rose girl scowled and said, "Aye, my mother was Kodachi, she cut her finger while working with some roses she'd just gotten from a shady supplier. They were actually from seeds exposed to the fallout from Hiroshima and then treated with magic plant growth formula. Adding her blood to the mix produced me, Briar Kuno. Mother trained me in all her styles, hiding me from my uncle and sending me off with a trusted maid to America before she was arrested. I've come back to reclaim her title of the Kurobara (Black Rose)!"

"And just why are you attacking us?" demanded Miyuki.

"Some of you are the spawn of my mother's rivals, which is reason enough! However, I recently transferred back here after my guardian's death and have enrolled at St. Bacchus School for Girls. Now I will take the idol competition by storm and get the glory my mother never got in her lifetime!" declared Briar.

"Yep, she's a Kuno alright, crazy as a loon," said Ranko with a sigh as she settled into a ready stance with her Shinai.

"Just what we need, another idiot trying to kill us," said Naruto as he drew Nenshousaiga. Briar glanced at him before smirking, sending shivers down Naruto's spine.

"Well, aren't you just a wonderfully handsome specimen of a boy!" said Briar in a flirty tone that caused Hinata's anger to spike as a small flame aura surrounded her, causing her waist length hair to whip around. Hearing Akira's snicker, Briar's eyes locked onto him and she licked her lips, causing him to gulp as he could practically feel her undressing him with her gaze. Her gaze then flickered to Thyme and the Dragon Prince started sweating as his instincts told him he was being eyed like a piece of meat. "All three of you boys are simply divine, I think I'll keep you as pets after I finish with the trash!"

To the surprise of anyone who knew her, Hinata didn't explode in anger, instead marching up to Naruto and pulling him into a kiss for a solid minute that left him panting and clearly happy. "Mine!" growled Hinata with a look in her eyes that screamed death for anyone who tried to touch her mate.

Briar's eyes narrowed and she scowled before she regained her composure and gave a haughty smirk before the petals on her head started to rustle. Pink spores started to float down from the petals and were carried by a small breeze to swirl around the three boys, whose eyes started to become glazed. "Come with me boys, and I'll bring you to a garden of mystical delights!" cooed Briar in a sultry voice.

Ryeka's eyes narrowed and a visor much like Sailor Mercury's slid across her eyes as two antenna rose from around her ears from two small hearing aid like devices she wore behind her ears. "Increased hormone levels and neural activity… she's trying to brain wash them!"

Hinata formed the tiger, snake, and ram seals in rapid succession before saying, "Fūton: Kami Oroshi (Wind Style: Godly Wind from the Mountain)!" and breathing out while focusing her chakra and miko powers in her mouth. The breeze that sprang up was gentle and carried the scent of fresh mountain flowers, clean clouds, and spring rain. It instantly dispersed the spores that were starting to cloud the boys' minds, causing all three to return to normal. Naruto drew Nenshousaiga, Akira started glowing with ki, and Thyme summoned his spear with a flash of magic.

"Darn, you had to ruin the mood!" pouted Briar before lashing out with her vine whip at Hinata, only to have the kunoichi slap it away with a chakra infused palm.

"You'll have to do better than that," said Hinata calmly.

"Try some of these!" hissed Briar as she spun like a top, releasing giant razor sharp leaves at the group.

"Flare Bit!" exclaimed Cinnamon as she raised her hands and directed a stream of small fireballs to intercept the leaves, burning them to harmless ash.

Briar hissed in annoyance and leapt forward, vines twisting around her arms to form sharp needle like points.

"I don't think so!" yelled Ranko as she swung her shinai up and deflected the attack.

"LIGHT ILLUMINA ACTIVATION!" yelled Kasumi before a burst of light flashed out from something on her wrist and faded to reveal her in a silver sailor top, shorts, and boots. A silver headband with a star on each side held her hair back and she grinned as she aimed her hand at Briar and yelled out, "Starburst Beam!" and shot a beam of rainbow energy at the plant girl. What she wasn't counting on was for Briar to simply absorb the attack with a grin.

"I'm a plant idiot, I can absorb sunlight as easily as you breathe!" taunted Briar.

"What about fire?" asked Naruto as he appeared behind Briar and slammed a flaming fist into her back.

"Argh!" screamed the plant girl as the flames engulfed her. Lashing out with her thorn whip, Briar managed to rip the top off a fire hydrant and used the resulting geyser to extinguish the flames. "I'll be back!" screeched the rose girl before she unleashed a cloud of pollen and petals to cover her escape.

"Crazy bitch!" muttered the group as they watched her bound away over the rooftops.

(0o0o0)

The rest of the month passed with no sightings of the new Black Rose, but several times the Furinkan girls had to deal with bouquets of delivered roses that released poison spores and pollen when opened. It seemed the Black Rose had also stopped her attacks on other contestants, because no more were reported before the day of the contest finally rolled around. Between practicing for the contest and finals, the teens were eagerly awaiting the summer break where they could relax and pick up their training with some trips out of town to cool down. The only one who seemed to be thriving on the hectic schedule was Ryeka, who had demanded to do the special effects for all three Furinkan groups.

The contest was taking place at a beach side amphitheater and the weather had obliged by being nice and sunny, so the seats were packed with people from the district here to see the representatives of the various schools.

A man in a Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks took center stage and the crowd slowly quieted down for him. "Konnichi wa, everyone, and thank you for coming to this fundraiser. I'm Fujimoto Saburou and I'm the head of the Neriman Commerce Committee. The proceeds will go to improving the ward's parks, attractions, and general repairs. The winners will receive a book of coupons for various shops and restaurant around the ward. A portion of all profits from refreshments sold today by our local vendors will be going to improve the World Disaster Relief Fund. Now I'll introduce our four judges!" A screen behind the councilman lit up and revealed the silhouettes of four people at a table facing the stage. "First is Tsunku-san, producer of Hello!Project, most notably Morning Musume!" The first shadowy figure was illuminated and revealed a cheerful looking brown haired man in a floral print shirt and shorts. "Our other three judges have asked to remain anonymous for now, they are Ms. V!" Here the woman next to Tsunku was revealed to be wearing a white one piece bathing suit with an orange sash wrapped around her waist and right shoulder. Her features aside from long blonde hair were obscured from the shadow cast by a large straw sun hat and mirrored sun glasses. "Ku-san!" The next figure was dressed in a yellow two piece bikini with an open white over coat plus the same hat and sunglasses as Ms V. "And finally, A-san!" The last judge was dressed in a green sundress and the now expected hat and sunglasses.

Tsunku leaned forward and spoke into the microphone resting in front of him on the table. "It's an honor to be here, I look forward to hearing the next generation of talent!"

"Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" exclaimed Ms. V with a big grin. "I just want everyone to know that everyone is a wiener in my story!" Hearing a cough from Ku-san, Ms. V blushed and said, "I mean a winner in my book!" before sitting back and burying her face in her hands.

"Konnichi wa, it is a pleasure to be here. I can't help but remember when I was starting out and I applaud these girls for having the guts to stand on the stage in front of everyone!" said Ku-san.

A-san had a blush on her face as she said, "I can't believe I'm here. When I got asked to judge an idol contest I was all, 'WHAAAAT?' in my agent's ear, but I'm eager to see how these brave girls perform."

Saburou smiled as the audience clapped for the judges before his face took on a more serious look. "Sadly, many of the contestants suffered accidents during the past month. We only have six groups performing today for you. Two teams from Kolhotz High School, one contestant from St. Bacchus School for Girls, and three groups from Furinkan High School. First of all, I give you the Sweet Sirens of Kolhotz High, Ayako and Ayaka!" there was a cheer from the Kolhotz section as a giant clam shell rose out of the stage floor before opening to reveal two girls lying inside the bottom of the shell. One had long flowing pink hair while the other had green hair in the same style. They were both in nearly identical outfits with a sparkly body dress, a necklace, and arm and leg covers. The pink haired girl wore a red dress while the rest of her outfit was a bright blue, and the green haired girl wore a sparkly blue dress with the rest of her costume being orange.

"Hello, everyone, I'm Ayako!" said the pink haired girl.

"And I'm Ayaka!" said the green one. "Our first song will be Gam's Amai Yuuwaku!" As the music started, the two sirens stood up from the shell and started singing while stepping down to the stage and then starting to dance.

(0o0o0)

"They're not human," muttered Kagome from where she was sitting with her family in the audience.

Inuyasha nodded before saying, "I'm getting a scent similar to that siren we met on our fifth anniversary cruise when she was the main act."

"Well, as long as they don't try anything fishy…" Kagome said, only to groan as her husband chuckled at her inadvertent pun.

(0o0o0)

The audience was clapping for the performance of the twins, the two were obviously used to working together and had been in perfect synch the whole time they were dancing and singing.

"Alright everyone, our next song is Twinkle Magic by Airi and Meiri!" exclaimed Ayako. The music for the next song started again and the audience watched as the two danced and sang together.

(0o0o0)

"They'll be a tough act to beat," said Miyuki with a grin from where the Furinkan girls were waiting in a changing room. "I'm starting to get excited!"

"I still can't believe I'm going to be dancing and singing on a stage in front of everyone!" grumbled Naruko. "Sasuke is never going to let us live this down if he finds out!"

"Relax, Naruko-chan, I won't tell him," said Hinata gently as she brushed the vixen's hair in preparation for their act. True to form, Naruko had only washed her hair that morning and needed to get it ready with expert help from her fiancée and a few charms from Cinnamon to get it to the perfect length.

(0o0o0)

"Alright, for our next song we're singing the theme from Kirarin Revolution, as performed by Koharu Kusumi and Mai Hagiwara, Hana wo Pu~n!" said Ayaka. Several cheers from younger kids throughout the crowd were heard, but the first notes had several adults and teens cringing. It was clear the song was not a crowd favorite. Nobody could deny that the two girls were in perfect synch, but it appeared they needed to anticipate the mood of the crowd a little more. The twins clearly felt the mood as they wrapped up their song and glanced at one another.

"Our final required song is our English one, Fergie and Koda Kumi's That Ain't Cool!" declared the twins at the same time. As the song started, the girls started singing back to back, with Ayaka singing Fergie's lines while Ayako took Kumi's parts.

At the judges' table, Ku-san's head could be seen bobbing to the song and when it was over she was the first person on their feet and clapping.

(0o0o0)

"Me likey!" said Cinnamon from where she was cuddling with Toshi on a bench in the dressing room.

"With those bodies you'd like them even if their voices were terrible," said Ranko with a deadpan look on her face. Cinnamon didn't bother to deny the accusation, simply enjoying the music.

(0o0o0)

"All right, let's give a big hand for the Sirens," said Saburou after the song had finished and the girls had made their bows. "The judges will now give a quick critique to the girls but their final score is withheld until the end of the competition.

Tsunku cleared his throat before saying, "While both of you are in excellent coordination and synchronize well, you need to remember to judge your audience a little better." Everyone knew he was referring to the girls' third song.

Ms. V was next and smiled at the girls before saying, "It's obvious you two have put in a lot of practice. Keep up that dedication and you'll go long! I mean far!" to chuckles from the audience and her fellow judges.

Ku-san took a sip of water before leveling a gaze at the girls from behind her shades. "I like the costumes, very well done and coordinated. Your entrance was a big hit," she said. "I like how you each stuck to one role for the last song, you blended together well for that."

A-san looked a bit nervous as she said, "I was very impressed with your dance moves, and it is obvious you've practiced your routines long and hard."

The twins bowed to the judges and exited the stage as the giant clam retracted into the floor. "Our next group is also from Kolhotz, please give a big hand for the three stars of the dance club, Three Wishes!" exclaimed Saburou.

The stage went dark before the tune of I Dream of Jeannie came over the speakers. A giant lamp rose up from the stage on a turning pedestal before the top opened and smoke billowed out before clearing to reveal three girls in genie outfits on the stage. All of them had the same dark skin, genie outfit, and accessories, with only their hair and the color of the outfit being the major differences. The first was a red head dressed in a red outfit with red jewelry and hair like fire that fell to her feet with a red jewel tiara resting in it. The second was in a blue outfit and jewelry with blue hair in a bang over her left eye and the rest in a ponytail down her back. The last one was clad in light green and had green hair that danced in an unseen breeze.

(0o0o0)

"Down girls!" said Ranko as she grabbed Cinnamon and Toshi by their collars to keep the two perpetually horny girls from running out of the room and onstage to ravage the new act.

(0o0o0)

"Hello, everyone!" said the three girls into their wireless microphones. "We're the Nejem (Arabic for Star) sisters!"

The redhead grinned and said, "I'm Atsuko (Warm Child)!"

"I'm Youko (Ocean Child)," said the girl in blue.

"Fūko (Wind Child) here!" exclaimed the green-clad girl, who seemed to be bouncing up and down with excitement, something the male members of the audience appreciated.

(0o0o0)

"I'm getting a bucket of cold water," growled Ranko as she watched Toshi and Cinnamon's heads bob up and down in time with Fūko's bounces. The two instantly stopped, knowing that Ranko had a short temper with their antics without the rest of the group around to lighten the atmosphere.

(0o0o0)

"Hinata-chan, what do you say you bring out that harem costume Xaria gave you again tonight?" asked Naruko.

"Maybe if you're a good girl," said Hinata, though her perverted side was cheering the idea on.

"Just put something on the door so we don't walk in on you two by accident," warned Kimiko, having already had the misfortune to walk in on Toshi and Cinnamon at the giant onsen connected to the Masaki house by Washu's portals. The dog girl didn't really mind until they tried to get her to join in as she turned to leave, but reminding the succubus she could purify her to dust caused Toshi to calm down.

(0o0o0)

"Our first song is Renai Sentai Shitsu Ranger by Nochiura Natsumi!" exclaimed Fūko before all three girls struck sentai-style poses. Tsunku leaned forward a bit, which wasn't too big a surprise to Morning Musume fans since Nochiura Natsumi had been formed from Hello! Project soloists, two of which—Natsumi Abe and Maki Goto—had been former members of Morning Musume. The upbeat music started and soon the whole crowd was clapping along to the beat as the three girls pranced on stage singing and making sentai poses.

As soon as the song stopped, the entire audience was cheering and the girls briefly bowed before Atsuko said, "Our second song is Nochiura Natsumi's other song, Love Like Crazy!" As the music started blasting from the speakers, all three girls started pumping their arms as they did a few quick dance steps before starting to sing.

(0o0o0)

"The girls in this school are pretty good," said Ryeka.

"Kolhotz has always been behind Furinkan and St. Bacchus in notoriety, but back in our parents' day, they had a legitimate claim to fame with their Golden Pair of Martial Arts Figure Skating. The male half Mikado Sanzenin was a woman chaser who stole dad's first kiss in female form," said Akira. Seeing the disbelieving looks on his friends' faces he grimaced and said, "Dad knocked him out so fast his body remained standing even after he was unconscious. The girl half was Azusa Shiratori, a kleptomaniac who stole cute things and gave them French names. She grabbed everything from fish cakes to Ryoga in his piglet form."

(0o0o0)

"And now, Aya Matsuura's The Bigaku, as stylized by Biyuuden!" exclaimed Youko before all three sisters started clapping their hands above their heads to the music while swaying back and forth before starting to sing. By now, many fans were bouncing up and down with restrained glee as the group's song really got going.

(0o0o0)

"Feeling nervous?" Kasumi asked Keimei as the two relaxed in their changing room.

"A little, I know we aren't the most active of the girls from our school…" said the dragon girl as she adjusted her kimono a bit.

"We put in the practice and the important thing is that we do our best," Kasumi said as she sipped some bottled water.

(0o0o0)

"Our last song from Japan is another Biyuuden hit, Kurenai no Kisetsu!" exclaimed Fūko. The catchy beat for the start of the song was echoed by the Biyuuden fans chanting along before they went silent as the girls started to sing.

(0o0o0)

"Those three aren't human," said Naruko, getting a nod from Kimiko and puzzled looks from Miyuki and Hinata. "They're putting off crazy magical auras, at the very least those three are magical girls, at the greatest they're physical embodiments of the elements based on their names."

"And imagine the chaos three angry elementals could cause if they don't win," said Kimiko with a shudder that Miyuki echoed as memories of pictures Gosunkugi had shown the Magical Awareness class featuring the results of an elemental getting angry. Erupting volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunami, and other natural disasters had left devastation in the wake of an elemental getting upset.

(0o0o0)

"Our English song is About a Girl as performed by the Sugababes!" all three girls said before a hip hop beat started playing.

(0o0o0)

"As a little treat for you, we've got our own original song," said Atsuko.

Youko smiled as she said, "This is the first time anyone has heard it,"

"We hope you enjoy Three Wishes!" finished Fūko before the I Dream of Jeannie theme stated playing, with all three girls starting to belly dance.

Lifting her mike and stepping forward as her sisters continued to dance behind her, Atsuko sang

So now you've got my lamp,

What's your wish champ?

Everything is fine and dandy,

Will you wish for candy?

As Atsuko stepped back, all three girls started singing

You got three wishes boy,

So choose them well,

Once you use one it's gone for good,

So think carefully before opening your mouth!

Fūko now stepped up and sang out

There are a few rules to keep in your head,

No wishing to raise the dead,

I can't fire cupid's arrow,

No extra wishes do you follow?

As the wind sister stepped back, all three sisters started singing the chorus again

You got three wishes boy,

So choose them well,

Once you use one it's gone for good,

So think carefully before opening your mouth!

Youko sashayed forward and smiled before crooning out

All it takes is a wink,

Followed by a blink,

Reality warps around you,

As your wish comes true!

Atsuko and Fūko stepped up beside their sister as they all finished up

You got three wishes boy,

So choose them well,

Once you use one it's gone for good,

So think carefully before opening your mouth!

As the music ended, there was a moment of silence before clapping could be heard throughout the arena.

(0o0o0)

"That was awesome!" said Naruko with a grin, clapping along with her friends even though they couldn't be heard by anyone else.

"They've got real talent," Kimiko agreed.

(0o0o0)

"Lovely synchronization, each movement was flawless," said Tsunku after he jotted a few notes down on a pad in front of him.

Ms. V, who had been humming the theme for I Dream of Jeannie ever since the sisters finished, grinned and added, "I liked the dancing and the original song, nice use of your genie theme."

"Your outfits strike just the right balance for all audiences," said Ku-san with a smile.

"I could hardly keep from dancing to the songs, very catchy," said A-san with a blush visible on her cheeks.

The three sisters bowed to much applause before exiting the stage as the giant lamp they entered in retreated down into the stage.

(0o0o0)

Naruko opened the door as Keimei and Kasumi hurried past towards the stage. "Go get 'em!" encouraged the kitsune, only to blink as Three Wishes walked past the two girls. The five exchanged nods, though the three sisters came to a stop upon seeing Naruko staring at them.

"Can we help you?" asked Atsuko.

"Kind of, I was wondering what three daughters of the elemental Djinn clan were doing in Japan?" asked Naruko, causing all three girls to start in surprise. "It was either that or elementals, but this close you all have the same scent, so you're really sisters and elementals can't be family except for their same type."

"Can we talk in private?" asked Fūko, motioning to the door to the Neriman group's dressing room where the rest of the girls were looking on curiously. Naruko nodded and lead the sisters inside where they all sat down in mid air Indian style.

(0o0o0)

"Our next entry starts off the Furinkan High entries, give it up for Keimei and Kasumi, Water and Fire!" exclaimed Saburou. The two girls trotted out onto the stage, with Kasumi dressed in a red yukata and obi and her brown hair unbound while Keimei wore a blue yukata and obi and her long red hair hung past her shoulders. Both girls wore sandals the color of their partner's yukata and carried two paper fans in that same color. Each girl was wearing a headset with a microphone to allow for more energetic dance moves.

"Hello everyone, are you having fun?" asked Kasumi with a grin as she waved to the crowd, who cheered happily.

"I'm Keimei," said the dragoness with a bow.

"And I'm Kasumi!" said the brunette with a bow of her own. "Our first song is Pink Lady's Pepper Keibu!" As the old disco tune started playing, the two girls started dancing while waving their fans in time with the melody.

(0o0o0)

"As some of you may have guessed, we are not human, we are djinn," said Atsuko. "We share the same father while each of our mothers was a different species. Mine is an efreet."

"My mother is a Naiad," said Youko.

"And mine is a sylph," chirped Fūko, once again regaining her bubbly and bouncy spirit from on stage.

(0o0o0)

Three rather gorgeous women in the stands all sneezed at exactly the same time, covering their husband with bits of food as he finished buying them a tray of snacks. "Bless you," muttered the dark skinned man as he removed a piece of popcorn from his beard and went to wash his face.

"It's probably…" said the red head after finishing the bite of the spicy hot wasabi covered hot dog she'd just taken.

"Our daughters…" continued the blue haired woman before taking a long sip from a water bottle.

"Talking about us," finished the green haired one with a giggle that the other two joined in on.

(0o0o0)

"And we certainly don't want to antagonize the heir of the kitsune clan," said Atsuko with a bow from her waist and hands clasped in front of her that her sisters mimicked.

Seeing the startled looks the Furinkan girls were giving them, Fūko giggled and said, "Your mother is very well known in the world of the spirits, many tribes owe her favors for past assistance and she sent out photos of you upon your graduation from the academy in case you had a mission outside the elemental countries. And we can sense Jusenkyo's magic on the two of you." This last part was said as she pointed at Naruko and Miyuki.

"Hey, they're starting their next song!" exclaimed Hinata, interrupting any further conversation as everyone focused on the monitor where Kasumi and Keimei were wrapping up their next song.

(0o0o0)

"Next up!" exclaimed Keimei once the applause for their first number had died down, "Is GAM's Thanks!" As the two girls started dancing to the beat of the song, they started tossing their fans back and forth between one another, adding to the visual display.

(0o0o0)

"Very clever, plus it has an original look," said Ranko.

Toshi merely nodded, not wishing to try the red head's temper with a comment that could be taken as perverted so close to their time to hit the stage.

"This does explain why they were reading all those juggling books and practicing whenever they had a moment to spare between classes," added Cinnamon.

"Still, fans are different than balls, pins, or other common juggling tools," said Ranko.

"I wonder if you could juggle dild…" Toshi started to ask, only to have Cinnamon smack her hand over the succubus's mouth before she could finish the sentence. The death glare Ranko leveled at the succubus was enough to have Toshi regret opening her mouth.

(0o0o0)

"Our last Japanese song is W's Koi no Vacance!" said Kasumi. There was a noticeable wince from Tsunku at the mention of the group, mainly because a former Morning Musume member had been part of it and caused several scandals, but he shook himself out of the melancholy mood as the music started.

(0o0o0)

"So far, I like those two and the genie trio the most," said Naruko as she watched the girls dance, sing, and toss their fans around.

Hinata nodded from where she was doing some stretches that caused Naruko's eyes to wander from the television. "Yes, they're very good, adding the fan routines just makes them more interesting," said the Hyuuga heiress, not noticing how Naruko was following her every moment as she bent over to touch her toes.

"Hinata, stop before Naruko passes out from blood loss…" warned Miyuki, only to groan as the kitsune fell to the ground with a grin on her face and blood dripping from her nose. "Too late…"

"I swear, sometimes I'm sure Kakashi-sensei and Jiraiya-sama have corrupted Naruto beyond hope," sighed Hinata before she worked on reviving the vixen.

(0o0o0)

Kasumi took a moment to catch her breath before saying, "Our English song is Like Whoa by the duo Aly & AJ, we hope you like it!" As the two girls started singing, the screen behind them turned on and showed the two girls cruising in a car that quickly shifted to the two of them riding a rollercoaster  
Ryeka had created with CG for them.

(0o0o0)

"Good job on the CG, Ryeka," said Thyme as they watched the girls. As the girls danced, the view shifted from a front view to the view of riders inside the rollercoaster as it whipped through turns, climbed hills, shot through loop de loops, corkscrews, and skimmed above a giant pond.

"It was easy for the second greatest scientific genius in the universe!" declared Ryeka as Ren-oh-ki let out a happy "Miyahhh!" while waving a set of small flags in her paws.

(0o0o0)

As Kasumi and Keimei wrapped up their dance, the crowd gave them a round of applause before a fast tune was heard and a catchy beat started playing as Kasumi and Keimei tucked their fans into their obi and started swaying back and forth while their hands imitated rabbit ears. The crowd quickly got into the act as Caramelldansen started playing with the girls singing the song in English. "As soon as the applause for the final song had finished, the master of ceremonies stood up and said, "Excellent job, girls. Our judges will now give some feedback…"

Tsunku took a sip of water before saying, "Well done, especially the juggling acts you incorporated to the dances."

"I agree," said Ms V, "It was new and exciting to see the fans being tossed, especially when you did it so smoothly."

"You show a high degree of practice for this contest with the juggling in addition to the songs and dancing," said Ku-san with a smile.

A-san looked up from where she was scribbling on a pad of paper and blinked for a moment until Ku-san nudged her with an elbow. "Oh, I like your outfits, they match but don't hinder your movements, good choices."

Saburou smiled as the audience clapped before saying, "Before our next group goes we're going to have a break for lunch since we're halfway through our contestants, in the mean time please help yourselves to food, drinks, and using the restrooms!"

(0o0o0)

"Dang, we have to wait for an hour!" said Ranko as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"And we can't go out of the building, I don't want to get our outfits dirty," said Cinnamon.

A knock on the door interrupted any further discussion and Ranko cracked it open to see a smiling girl. "Saburou-san asked me to bring you girls a set of menus for the restaurants in the building so you could get something to eat."

The three girls were quite happy to get some food and quickly looked through the menus.

(0o0o0)

"Ne, Hinata-chan, do you think we could make pizza popular in Konoha?" asked Naruko as she took a big bite out of the sausage pizza the four girls had split.

"Maybe, there are enough variations that it should be popular, especially if they were to sell by the slice for people wanting a quick bite," replied Hinata before giggling.

Miyuki lightly poked the giggling girl and asked, "What's so funny?"

"I was imagining my father eating pizza with extra cheese only for the cheese to snap back and cover his face." Naruko immediately started chuckling, being the only one present who knew how stoic Hiashi could be and his likely reaction due to a past prank that involved a large amount of glue, one of his wife's underwear drawer, and culminated with Hiashi chasing Naruto through the streets of Konoha with a bra for a hat while Hikari laughed on the sidelines.

Suddenly, the door opened to reveal an angry Ranko clutching a bag containing a burger and fries to go with the large soda in her hand. "I can't believe those two!" growled the red head as she shut the door behind her and took one of the spare seats so she could eat.

The four friends shared glances before Naruko nervously asked, "What did Cinnamon and Toshi do NOW?"

"They both started playing with their food. Cinnamon had a giant hot dog that she was apparently trying to swallow whole while Toshi was sucking on a pair of giant pork buns!" exclaimed Ranko as she savagely took a bite out of her triple patty burger with cheese. Like her brother's female form, Ranko could eat tons of food and burn all the calories away.

"Well, maybe they were just really hungry…" suggested Miyuki, only to let out an "Eeepp!" as her aunt glared at her and caused the cat girl to dive behind Naruko for protection.

"Cinnamon, maybe, but Toshi probably knew what she was doing," muttered Ranko before a knock was heard on the door. Opening it, she found a frowning Cinnamon standing there.

"I'm sorry, Ranko, I was hungry and didn't notice Toshi was playing with her food," said Cinnamon before bowing to the red head. "I'll punish her tonight and make sure she behaves for the rest of the day."

"Alright, but I'm still mad, so I'll take a quick walk to cool off after I finish this," said Ranko before tearing another chunk out of the poor burger.

"Thank you, just remember we only have fifteen minutes left," said Cinnamon before she returned to her group's room and glared at Toshi, whom she had hog tied and spanked so hard the succubus wouldn't be sitting down for a while. "I hope you're happy, Toshi, Ranko is not very tolerant of your antics and we're lucky the other girls calmed her down so she'd listen to me. If she hadn't calmed down she could have walked out on us!"

"I'm sorry, Mistress," said Toshi before she found one of her half eaten pork buns put on a plate in front of her face.

"Eat up, you'll need all your energy for the performance and your punishment tonight!" ordered Cinnamon.

(0o0o0)

"Alright, everyone, our second entry from Furinkan is Silken Flowers!" declared Saburou before the sound of an Erhu being played filled the auditorium. As it did, Toshi, Ranko, and Cinnamon walked onto the stage, each girl holding a silk parasol in her hands and open so it prevented the audience from seeing more of the girls than their feet. As the music started to pick up its pace, the parasols started to spin before they were lifted up to reveal Ranko, Toshi, and Cinnamon before each girl placed their parasol in a large can set up for them at the center of the stage. All three were wearing the same style of slinky dress that clung to their bodies with a slit that showed a bit of leg, shoes that matched the dress's color, a pair of gloves, and a small golden tiara with a gem on the top. Ranko was dressed in a pink dress, shoes, mauve gloves, and her tiara had a sapphire on it. Toshi had her wings out and wore a red and black dress, red shoes, black gloves, and a tiara with a ruby. Cinnamon's wings and tail feathers were only outmatched by her hair, which seemed to be on fire, including her eyebrows while her dress and shoes were a dark copper, her gloves a dark gold, and an emerald in her tiara. All three wore the same microphone headset that Kasumi and Keimei had used.

"Alright everyone, here is Biyuuden's Koisuru Angel Heart!" exclaimed Ranko before the music started playing.

(0o0o0)

"Phew, I thought their coordination would be a bit off thanks to Toshi's antics," said Naruko.

"Well, I guess Cinnamon apologizing for her behavior helped, you know she doesn't do that often," suggested Hinata. It was true, Cinnamon rarely apologized to those she embarrassed with her antics unless someone got hurt, like the time she tried out her expansion potion by putting it in Hinata's drink and treating everyone to the girl's already sizeable assets increasing rapidly and tearing her shirt. The fallout had been most of the boys in the hospital either from blood loss or being beaten up by Naruto for commenting on Hinata's hooters.

(0o0o0)

As the song ended and the crowd cheered, the girls took a moment to catch their breath after the dancing and singing before Toshi stepped forward and said, "Our next song is Biyuuden's Aisu Kuriimu to My Purin!" As the music started, it was easy to see a blush forming on Ranko's face as she had to do the dance that involved lots of emphasis on cheesecake poses, wiggling, and hip shaking.

(0o0o0)

"That explains why Auntie always looked so flushed after practicing her dance routines on her own," said Miyuki with a chuckle. "While she's nowhere as much a prude as mom was during high school, she's still not very confident in her body and she'd have to use a mirror to make sure she was doing the dance right."

"Given the stories you've told us about your father's antics in his cursed form, I wouldn't be surprised," said Kimiko. "They're practically clones of one another except for the hair style."

(0o0o0)

Cinnamon grinned as the trio dropped the last pose at the end of the routine and listened to the clapping of the crowd before saying, "Our last Japanese song is Hare Hare Yukai!" As Cinnamon started doing the part of Haruhi Suzumiya from the anime's closing, Ranko and Toshi prepared to jump in right before Cinnamon started singing. Toshi took the part of Mikuru Asahina, leaving Ranko, whose throat was a bit sore, the nearly silent role of Yuki Nagato.

(0o0o0)

Ryeka grinned as she fiddled with the sound board for the stage before sitting back and watching. "Excellent, perfect sync."

"I'm more worried about the next song," said Akira. "I seriously doubt Auntie can keep from passing out from mortification from singing that song." The pigtailed boy gestured to where the song list was waiting to be qued up by Ryeka.

"So we should be standing by to run out there and pull your aunt back as she tries to slaughter Cinnamon and Toshi for choosing that song?" suggested Thyme, to which Akira could only shrug.

(0o0o0)

"I hate you two so much right now," Ranko muttered under her breath as Toshi stepped forward to announce the last song.

"And now, from the US of A, Bootylicious by Destiny's Child!" exclaimed the succubus. Many of the guys in the audience cheered even as Ranko's face started turning tomato red, though from rage or embarrassment was hard to tell.

(0o0o0)

"Ack!" gasped Naruko as she nearly choked on the water she was drinking at the title of the song.

"How did they get Ranko-chan to agree to sing that?" asked Hinata.

Miyuki grimaced as she said, "They called her afraid of her own feminism, which she denied only to put her foot in her mouth worse than dad ever did and say she'd do a sexy song and dance routine with them."

"Oh man, no wonder she's been so angry lately," said Kimiko with a shudder.

(0o0o0)

"And now, the judges will give their input," said Saburou-san.

"I'm always glad to see more Hello! Project influencing creativity," said Tsunku, "Especially since I worked with Rika-chan so much. You three do the group's songs proud!"

Mrs. V, who had been humming Hare Hare Yukai theme under her breath grinned and said, "I liked the Hare Hare Yukai song, good coordination on the singing and dancing."

Ku-san sighed and said, "I really like the costumes and your coordination, but tone down the sexiness just a bit, it doesn't do to look slutty." The look Ranko flashed Cinnamon and Toshi could have killed and both winced at the knowledge that their next sparring session with Ranko would go badly for them.

A-san nodded in agreement with her fellow judge before saying, "I do think the parasols were a nice touch." All three girls bowed before walking off the stage, Cinnamon and Toshi trying to make sure they didn't run from Ranko as she walked behind them.

"Our last group is also from Furinkan High, please welcome Hyuuga Hinata, Kamiya Kimiko, Saotome Miyuki, and Uzumaki Naruko!" exclaimed Saburou to much clapping from the Furinkan supporters.

The stage went dark before a giant screen came on to show Hinata. However, what caught everyone's attention was that she was flying through the air on feathered wings that looked like they were made of flame. She was also dressed in a purple kimono that hid her body from view but showed off her figure and purple and black boots with a low heel. The crowd watched her do a few loops and barrel rolls before she turned and waved to the camera before banking. As the camera followed her, the audience saw an overhead view of the stage and looked up to see Hinata folding her wings before diving towards the stage. The bluette pulled up into a vertical corkscrew just before she hit and hovered for a minute facing the audience before landing and yelling, "Phoenix!" into her headset mike while posing with her hand in the air.

The stage stayed dark except for the light from Hinata's wings and the screen, which now showed the outside of a shrine and Kimiko in a miko outfit sweeping the grounds. She suddenly looked up as a red and blue oni charged her with kanabo raised. The young miko spun gracefully around the blows and hurled ofuda at the two youkai, causing them to cry out before disintegrating. Kimiko picked up her broom and swept the dust out of the shrine, then stepped through the shrine tori and on to the stage after tossing her broom away and calling out, "Inu!" into her headset while holding some ofuda like a fan in front of her face.

The screen now showed a tropical jungle, whose only inhabitant seemed to be red and white blur. It rushed up a tree and paused at the top, revealing Miyuki in a cave girl bikini over a red tiger fur striped suit that made her look more catlike while red kung fu slippers covered her feet. Miyuki surveyed her jungle domain for a moment before leaping right at the camera and appearing to pass through the screen and land on the stage on all fours. Raising one paw into the air she said, "Neko!"

The audience was eager to see the next act and they weren't disappointed as the screen showed a castle courtyard with a cloaked figure surrounded by twenty samurai with swords drawn. The cloaked figure tossed the cloak away to reveal Naruko in a sexy red top and bottom combo that ensured her body would distract any male opponent though a tight black shirt and pair of pants kept her from showing an inappropriate amount of skin. The kitsune girl exploded into a blur of punches, kicks, sword strikes, and thrown kunai that quickly left her the only one standing in the courtyard. Forming the ram seal, Naruko vanished from the courtyard in a puff of smoke only to reappear on the stage beside Miyuki. "Kitsune!" yelled Naruko.

"And we are PINK!" exclaimed all four girls together to massive applause for their impressive entrances.

"Our first song is Hinoi Team's Now and Forever!" said Hinata with a smile before the music started.

(0o0o0)

"Are we absolutely sure Naruko can't synch with people like she can with machines?" asked Akira as he watched the girls do their dance routine.

"Well, with Hinata they've known one another for a long time, so the synch is kind of expected," said Ryeka as she adjusted the level of the back ground music a tad lower. "And your sister is nothing if not adaptable."

(0o0o0)

Kimiko smiled at the applause their first song had gotten before saying, "Our next song is another Hello Project hit, Def. Diva's Suki Sugite Baka Mitai!"

(0o0o0)

"They're doing a great job, aren't they?" Inuyasha asked Kagome as he leaned in to whisper over Haruka, who was happily singing along to all the tunes she had supplied for the three Furinkan groups due to her massive Hello!Project collection.

"With Haruka ready to list every mistake they make as soon as they're done? Of course they are," said Kagome with a smirk at her mate.

"I'm just glad I convinced this big lug to come," said Lina from where she was sitting with Sesshomaru behind the couple. "I seriously need to get a Karaoke system for the castle, I can power it with my powers. Rin's been begging for one ever since Shippo took her to one for their last date." The Demigoddess was dressed in a simple sundress, while Sesshomaru was wearing a dark blue shirt that left his chest bare and black swim trunks. Rin and Shippo were watching the Higurashi shrine for Kagome and Inuyasha was filming the whole thing for them to see later.

"But I prefer you giving me private concerts!" said Sesshomaru, trying to use puppy dog eyes on her, only to have Inuyasha gag at the sight as Lina smirked.

(0o0o0)

As the girls wrapped up their second song, Kimiko stepped forward and said, "Our next song is also by Hinoi Team."

"Ike Ike!" exclaimed all four girls at once as they posed for a second before starting to dance.

(0o0o0)

"How much Para Para have those four been doing to get so good?" asked Ranko from where she was watching in Silken Flowers' dressing room.

"And when did they have the time?" Toshi added.

"Naruto did mention something about using seals to create a training room where time moved faster…" muttered Cinnamon.

(0o0o0)

"Alright!" exclaimed Miyuki once the music had stopped and the rest of the girls were suddenly facing away from the stage in a line. "Next up, Hinoi Team's King Kong!" The catgirl started singing the opening lyrics of the song without music and the rest of the girls started joining in as the music started.

(0o0o0)

"The crowd loves them!" said Ryeka with a grin as she glanced at a monitor showing most of the audience clapping along to the catchy beat of the music.

"I'll say," said Akira, who was tapping his foot to the music along with Thyme.

"Looks like they're wrapping up," said Hiryuu as the girls were coming to the end of the song.

(0o0o0)

Naruko took a deep breath and stepped forward as the rest of the girls turned their backs to the audience. "Our next song is Hinoi Team's Dancing and Dreaming!" said the kitsune hanyou before she took her place at the end of the line before the music started.

(0o0o0)

"At least she managed to get her line out," said Jiraiya with a sigh. "I've got to decrease that brat's fear of public performance." The toad sage was dressed in a loud green floral print shirt and trunks while sipping a soda next to Rōshi, who had a yellow version of the same outfit and was enjoying some popcorn.

"Wait, you're telling me the kid who painted the Hokage monument in broad daylight is afraid of public appearances?" asked Rōshi.

"Naruto hates having to show off in stuff like this, for his pranks he's fine since he's showing his own skills with no judges, but for a contest where he's being judged he's always needed Sasuke or Hinata to talk him into doing whatever it is since he's afraid the judges will be giving him a high score due to his parents. He never did any talent shows in the village or art contests like the other kids. Naruto hates being given stuff just because his dad is Hokage, so I'm really surprised Naruko agreed to this." Jiraiya explained before gesturing for Rōshi to focus back on the stage where the girls were wrapping up their dance.

(0o0o0)

To the surprise of the audience, panels in the floor slid back as a drum set rose onto the stage while Akira, Thyme, and Hiryuu brought out three electric guitars. Hinata took a seat behind the drums, while Naruko took the bass guitar while Kimiko and Miyuki took the normal guitars. "Alright everyone, we've got our English song for you, and we all felt we needed some live music accompanying this song," said Miyuki with a grin as she quickly tuned the guitar. "

"And so, here is I Love Rock N' Roll by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts!" declared Kimiko before the three guitarists started playing the opening riff of the song. This time, the lyrics of the song appeared on the monitors in Japanese as Kimiko clapped her hands to get the audience to sing along with the chorus.

(0o0o0)

"Okay, when did they have the time to learn how to play instruments?" demanded Cinnamon.

Ranko thought for a moment before narrowing her eyes. "Maybe Miyuki sought out a Martial Artist Rock 'n' Roll master for training?" she suggested.

"But for all four of them to get to a decent level in just two months?" Toshi exclaimed as she watched the audience chant along with the chorus and bounce up and down in their seats from the beat of the song. The girls were also switching off singing the parts of the song besides the chorus, Miyuki had started out, then Kimiko, then Naruko, and finally Hinata, with all four joining together for the chorus of the song.

(0o0o0)

As the song ended, the audience went wild with applause, as all four girls set their instruments down and stepped forward to give a small bow before taking quick sips of water from bottles Akira tossed them.

"And last but not least," said Hinata with a smile, "We have our original song, Kemonomimi!" A catchy tune started up as all four girls made cute poses before starting to sing.

We are Kemonomimi, that is what we are!

Ears, tails, wings, and claws have we!

Part animal, part human, hundred percent girl!

Hinata stepped in front of the rest of the girls, singing her part of the song and image of her with her flame wings played on the screen showing her tending to a bandaged Naruto in a hospital room.

Phoenixmimi is kind and gentle,

Always ready to help anyone,

Her heart burns bright as her flames!

As Hinata stepped back, the rest of the girls joined in singing the chorus.

We are Kemonomimi, that is what we are!

Ears, tails, wings, and claws have we!

Part animal, part human, hundred percent girl!

Kimiko now took center stage as the screen showed her in a shorts and a tee shirt sniffing down a hiding Haruka in the park.

Inumimi is a strong hunter,

Sniffing out her prey,

Then running it down!

Kimiko gracefully stepped back to join her friends as they started the chorus again.

We are Kemonomimi, that is what we are!

Ears, tails, wings, and claws have we!

Part animal, part human, hundred percent girl!

Miyuki practically bounced forward as she started singing and the monitor showed her in various cat poses with balls or yarn, a bowl of milk, chasing a mouse, and eating a fish.

Nekomimi likes to stalk her prey,

Climbs around up and down,

Prowling all across the ground!

Miyuki executed a backwards flip in midair that put her back with the rest of the group for the chorus.

We are Kemonomimi, that is what we are!

Ears, tails, wings, and claws have we!

Part animal, part human, hundred percent girl!

Naruko did a high flip forward, landing and starting to sing as the monitor started showing her doing an infiltration of the castle featured in her intro.

Kitsunemimi is sly and crafty,

Blue fire in her hands and swishing tails,

Makes her beautiful and deadly!

Naruko then used Shunshin to rejoin the group for the chorus.

We are Kemonomimi, that is what we are!

Ears, tails, wings, and claws have we!

Part animal, part human, hundred percent girl!

Now, all four girls sang the last part of the song together while images of them at home and school showed on the big screen.

Kemonomimi are just like other girls,

We have to go to school,

Deal with homework and chores,

We only look a little different,

But that doesn't change who we are!

We are Kemonomimi, that is what we are!

Ears, tails, wings, and claws have we!

Part animal, part human, hundred percent girl!

The girls came to a stop and there was silence for a minute before the Furinkan supporters started clapping, followed by most of the audience.

(0o0o0)

"I have to say, I am impressed," said Saburou with a smile as the judges conferred before a member of his staff ran up and handed him a piece of paper. The man quickly read the message and his eyes widened before whispering into the messenger's ear before the man ran off.

"I loved it," said Tsunku, "especially the instruments, it's easy to see you practiced a lot for that song and your original one."

Ms V grinned and said, "I've been to England and learned to enjoy Rock there, you four did a good job with the instruments."

"I love the outfits and intro, you girls really embraced your theme," said Ku-san.

"Good dance moves, though you could have tried to do more groups for inspiration," said A-san.

All four girls bowed one more time before leaving the stage.

"Alright," said Saburou as he walked onto the stage. "Now our last contestant is from St. Bacchus School for Girls, Briar Kuno!"

(0o0o0)

Up in the stands, Tatewaki Kuno spat out the soda he'd just sipped, drenching Shugo in the carbonated beverage. "That's impossible!" growled the head of the Kuno clan as he whipped out his cellphone and called for his staff to sort out this mess. "Sasuke, we've got a situation," he told his faithful ninja retainer.

(0o0o0)

A giant black rose seemed to grow out of the floor of the stage before bending over and resting against the stage for a moment before the petals opened to reveal Briar in a dress made of leaves and grass, ivy boots and gloves, a giant red rose cape, and a garland of black roses in her hair plus one clutched in her teeth. "OHHHHHHH-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo! Rejoice, peasants, the lovely Black Rose has arrived to grace you with the voice of an angel," said Briar, only to blink as Saburou pointed at her while talking to a man in a uniform. "What is the meaning of this?" demanded Briar as several security guards hurried onto the stage to surround her and the rest of the contestants moved out from the backstage.

"Madam, recent evidence has just been brought to me, two different victims who would have been in this contest say without a doubt that you are the one who attacked them. A search of your dressing room when we couldn't find you and feared you had been attacked revealed the costume you wore to attack the other girls. You have also attacked numerous contestants before the contest and reduced the number of competing schools from seven to three, limiting the amount of funds this event can raise," explained Saburou as he gestured for security to take the crazy girl away. "As such, you will not be performing and need to come with the guards to the police."

As soon as the guards grabbed Briar, vines exploded out from her and tossed the men away. "Keep your hands off me, peasants!" shrieked the girl as smaller vines tore apart her costume and left her in the leaf bodysuit, boots, and gloves while thorn bracers grew on her arms that could be used for stabbing. One more vine grew into Briar's thorn whip and she snapped it aggressively. "Feel the fury of the Black Rose!" yelled Briar as she sent the whip towards Saburou, only to have two other whips snag it out of mid air. Following the whips, she found Cinnamon holding the ends and smirking.

"I knew you might try something, all the stories Ranma-sensei has told us about Kodachi Kuno made it clear she couldn't stand losing and you're no different!" said the phoenix dragon girl before she channeled some energy into the whips. Runes and seals etched into the leather started to glow and one of the whips gained an icy tip while the other burst into flames.

Cinnamon was not the only one to be prepared, Naruko produced Nenshousaiga from the sleeves of her outfit while Kimiko pulled her bow from the special seal bracelet Naruto had created to hold it. Ranko had already produced a shinai from hammer space and advanced with Naruko while Kimiko stepped back to provide support. Hinata, Toshi, and Miyuki had all assumed fighting stances and acted as a defensive screen for the other contestants. Akira, Thyme, Hiryuu, and Ryeka ran out of the sound control room, putting themselves between Briar and the judges.

"All of you will pay for this insolence!" screamed Briar as she discarded her captured whip and grew a second. With a pirouette, Briar sent thorns flying fast enough to puncture the concrete of the stage. However, a wall of fire sprang up from Atsuko's hands before spreading to cover the audience as they started panicking and running from the amphitheatre.

"I don't think so," growled the Ifrit girl as her hair when from red with orange and yellow highlights to living flame. Her sisters underwent a similar transformation, with Fūko's hair becoming swirling green wind and Youko's becoming rippling water. Each of the girls began gathering their element between their hands before forming their personal weapons. Atsuko had a flaming flamberge sword, while Youko had a katana made of ice as well as a shield, and Fūko had two ninjato crackling with electricity. In addition to the weapons, each girl gained a set of shoulder guards set with the same stones as their head bands.

"Careful, she seems to absorb light based attacks and can probably suck up water," warned Naruko at Atsuko and Fūko moved up to join the other weapon users, allowing their sister to fall back with the defenders.

"Then we'll do this the old fashioned way and kill her with fire!" exclaimed Atsuko as she charged forward with her blazing sword. Naruko quickly followed, the two trying to catch Briar in a pincher attack. Briar frowned and a wave of thorns shot up from the ground, aiming to skewer her attackers. However, a wind blade from Fūko sliced the thorns up and allowed Naruko and Atsuko to do a cross slash that neatly chopped Briar in half at the waist. As Briar's top half fell to the ground, the two attackers turned to rejoin their friends, only to spin around as vines grew from each half and made two clones of the original Briar, only for the one formed from Briar's legs to have lost its flesh tone and be appear to have plant material for skin, thorny purple vines for hair, and two wing like protrusions that resembled the flaps of a Venus Fly Trap. Spores started drifting from this new growth, and Naruko only needed a single sniff to tell how deadly they were.

"Get back, she's using poison spores!" yelled the kitsune as she jumped clear with Atsuko following. Fūko waved her hand and a barrier of wind surrounded the stage, keeping the spores from spreading to the fleeing audience. Youko spun in a circle before stabbing her blade into the ground, causing a geyser to erupt from the center of the stage. The resulting shower of water caused the spores to fall to the ground, rendered harmless.

The mutant Briar clone dashed forward, multiple thorn vine whips shooting from her wrists to snag her opponents. Only Atsuko and Hinata avoided being grabbed, Atsuko by creating a fire aura and Hinata by using chakra blades to slice the vines heading towards her. As Atsuko freed the other captives, Hinata darted forward and engaged the mutant clone in close quarters. Hinata twisted, flipped, and bent around vine whips, thorn bracers, and a barrage of thick pollen balls that burned like acid the one time she brushed against one. A barrage of fireballs from Naruko and Atsuko joined with plasma blasts from a pair of Covenant Plasma Rifles Ryeka summoned reduced the mutant clone to charred bits as Hinata leapt clear of the attacks thanks to her Byakugan. A Flare Arrow from Cinnamon finished off the mutant before it could regenerate, but Briar had vanished.

"Byakugan!" said Hinata as the veins around her eyes bulged, causing Youko to take a step back from her fellow bluette. "Uh, I think we have a problem," said Hinata. "Remember how there was that tropical garden next door?" Upon getting nods from everyone, Hinata continued, "Well, apparently Briar slipped over there and is absorbing all the plants." At that moment, a giant rose erupted over the amphitheatre wall and opened to reveal Briar protected by flaps of hardened sap that protected her but allowed her to see through and closed over her.

"Not good," said Ryeka as she tossed her plasma rifles aside and switched to the UNSC Spartan Laser. "This bad boy should be able to lay some serious smack down on her."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't she just absorb light based attacks?" asked Ranko.

"That's because the chlorophyll in plants is best at absorbing the blue and red portion of the electromagnetic spectrum," said Ryeka as she showed the focusing lens for the laser was green instead of red.

"Less talking, more fighting!" yelled Miyuki as she struggled against vines that had erupted from the stage and were grabbing anyone near them. The cat girl managed to claw herself free and leapt away from a pollen cloud that Naruko and Fūko blew away from the stage. Ranko and Ryeka quickly joined in, using their boken and energy blade respectively to cut their friends free and keep the vines trimmed.

"Incoming!" yelled Atsuko as a bunch of giant seed pods rained down from the giant rose. The pods cracked open and revealed more of the mutant Briar clones.

Youko suddenly turned towards the sea with her mouth wide open as a giant water elemental rose out of the ocean. Inside, resting on a giant seashell that put them at eye level of the elemental were Ayaka and Ayako, now in mermaid form with tails that matched their hair colors and a white seashell bra each. The giant elemental slammed its massive fists into the huge rose, causing it to stagger. Ayako clutched a giant shell shield and an elaborate trident in her hands and replicas of them formed in the hands of the elemental just in time to block a pair of giant vines that sprouted from the rose and flailed at the elemental. Ayaka was holding onto a coral staff with an orb at the top and chanting, obviously the one in control of the giant elemental.

"At least they're keeping that thing too busy to sprout more of these," said Naruko as she chopped off a mutant's head with Nenshousaiga. As the pod clones were 'killed' they reverted to stuff suitable for a compost heap, only to be torched by Naruko or Atsuko to be sure they wouldn't grow back. "I'm starting to see why Sasuke hates fighting me when I use my clones," said the fox girl.

"Alright, I'm sick of these freaks!" yelled Fūko as she hacked another mutant in half. A look with her sisters had all three jumping into the air and landing so the remaining clones were trapped in the triangle the sisters formed. "Delta Storm!" yelled all three girls as they combined their fire, ice, and lightning magic to form a rotating pyramid of mystical energy that destroyed all the clones.

Naruko and Hinata took this chance to run towards the giant elemental. Since it was made of water, it was easy for the two of them to run right across the sea and up the elemental's body to its shoulders. "If I give you two an opening, do you think you can help Hinata-chan do a sea powered water jutsu to destroy that thing from the inside?" Naruko asked the two sirens.

Part of the elemental's head swirled away to reveal the twins. "I believe so, as long as she maintains contact with the surface of the elemental and uses the arm to shoot off the attack," said Ayaka as her sister fended off some more giant vine attacks.

"Great," said the blonde as jumped down to the ground and gathered wind and fire chakra around Nenshousaiga. "Kuuchuuhottokattohou (Hot Cutting Method)!" yelled Naruko as the wind and fire chakra reached the size of a zanbato. "Uzumaki Kenjutsu Ougi: Climhazzard!" yelled the blonde as she charged at the base of Briar's giant rose and landing a blow before leaping onto the giant stem and digging her blazing blade in and running up the stem to the rose top, where screams of pain from Briar were heard. The giant stem parted easily to Naruko's attack and as she slashed open the rose, Briar was revealed crouching in the middle of the rose with her protective flaps covering her. "Now, Hinata-chan!" yelled Naruko.

Hinata had been speeding through the hand signs for her jutsu and formed the bird hand seal before yelling, "Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu!" as the giant elemental thrust its hand forward. The hand erupted into the giant water dragon and plowed into the smoking breach Naruko had carved in the giant rose's stem. Briar shrieked in pain as the salt water was instantly absorbed into the plant's tissues, poisoning it. As she raised her eyes to glare at Hinata, a green dot appeared on the protective flaps in front of her.

"Hey, Poison Ivy Wannabe, have some light!" yelled Ryeka as she pulled the trigger of the massive laser cannon. What came out of the focusing lens could only be called a Wave Motion Gun as the massive beam was bigger than the focusing lens and tore through Briar's shields in an instant, though the plant girl had used the brief reprieve they gave to dive out the back of the flower.

As Briar fell towards the ground, the same strange growths on the backs of her mutant clones sprouted from her back and grew to a size that they allowed her to glide to the ground. However, as she landed, Kimiko dashed forward and slapped an ofuda on the plant girl. Briar screamed as her form started to waver. She quickly started mutating into a more degraded version of her clones, with her hands and mouth being replaced by venus fly traps and multiple red postulate eyes sprouting from her face. The last thing to change was her legs, which turned into root like tentacles. "Ugh, and you smelled bad already!" exclaimed Kimiko as she fought to keep from gagging at the stench Briar was releasing.

Thyme suddenly plunged down from the sky with a blue aura surrounding his spear. The impact of the attack tore off one of Briar's fly trap hands and sent her flying back to crash to the ground. "This is too easy," he said, only to groan as the claw reformed from roots that sprouted out of Briar's wrist and the severed claw started to grow and become a large venus fly trap monster that attacked him. As he avoided the tentacle vines that tried to pull him into the plant creature's maw, Thyme tripped over a root that sprouted from the ground and grabbed his foot. Before the creature could pull him in, Cinnamon's whips flashed in and coiled around its center stem body.

With a pulse of magic, the fire and ice tips of the whips sent their elements surging over the plant, burning and freezing it at the same time. And when Cinnamon yelled, "Mono Volt!" and sent an electric impulse into the mix down the two whips, the plant monster was obliterated in the ensuing elemental explosion. Briar had been keeping the melee fighters at bay with more of the same monsters threatening to overwhelm them if it hadn't been for Naruko creating a clone to pair up with each of the other fighters. Cinnamon grimaced as Briar's laugh echoed over the battle field before the phoenix princess took to the air. Raising her hands, Cinnamon started chanting, "Oh, source of all power, light which burns beyond crimson, let thy power gather in my hand. Fireball!" before firing a barrage of fireballs at each of the plant minions. The plants screeched as they were burned and Briar appeared to be ready to retreat, only to have Naruko, Ranko, and Atsuko burst through the charred remains of their opponents. Ranko and Naruko went for a crossing strike in an X pattern while Atsuko dashed forward up the middle. Briar was split into four pieces, only for each one to rapidly grow into a clone of her, still in her deformed state. Before the gruesome foursome could make a move, the arm of the giant water elemental moved over them with Youko having joined the twins. The elemental's fingers started to freeze and became giant icicles that rained down on the plant women. Two were skewered right away and the icicle suddenly expanded to cover them in a foot of ice on each side, while the other two avoided the attack or used giant thorns to deflect the ice.

Fūko grinned from the side as Hiryuu and Kimiko finished charging a set of ofuda before hurling them into the gust of wind she sent around the remaining Briar sisters. The tags managed to catch one as it avoided being entombed in ice and the plant girl shrieked as holy power shocked her. She quickly became compost, leaving the last quarter of Briar facing the whole group. Ryeka had already charged up an energy blast since the Spartan Laser was too risky to use at this point, while Kimiko had an arrow ready to go wrapped in ofuda from Hiryuu. Hinata was clutching several shuriken and kunai, while Naruko had a ball of fox fire in each hand ready to throw. The genie sisters had each formed a ball of their respective element above their heads, while the siren sisters had their elemental stretch over the whole group to prevent any escapes by air. Thyme, Ranko, Miyuki, and Akira were all charging Ki blasts, and Cinnamon had just finished chanting a fireball spell. Briar's multiple eyes widened at the sight of so many attacks and she would have moved if Cinnamon hadn't tossed a dagger at her shadow with a cry of "Shadow Snap!" Like the Nara clan techniques, the spell bound Briar in place and she could only curse as all the attacks slammed into her from every direction. The resulting explosion as the energy blasts fed the elemental and fox fire blasts reached high into the sky in a pillar of elemental chaos. Briar's form was visible for a second as her regeneration struggled to save her, only for it to lose to the elements tearing her apart and she was reduced to her component atoms before even those were blasted apart.

"Well at least that crazy psycho is gone," said Naruko as she surveyed the ruined stage and auditorium as the adults cautiously made their way into the arena now that the barrier of thorny rose vines blocking the entry and exit ways had died as Briar disintegrated. "Now we just have to clean up the mess she left behind."

(0o0o0)

On a large yacht several miles out to sea from the auditorium, three figures stood in front of a monitor showing Naruko creating a clone army to help clean up the mess. "Well, the brat has more skill than I thought," said the first one as she turned off the monitor.

The middle figure, whose height implied a male figure nodded and said, "Indeed, I will have to adapt my training simulations to ensure I am prepared for him if he gets past you, sister."

The last figure finished sharpening a knife blade and sheathed it as she moved from her place by the wall. "The two of you can train all you want, I can tell only our eldest brother or I have the skill to match our cousin."

"In physical terms yes, but in our own fields we will crush him," said the first woman with a smirk as she lit a cigarette in a long holder.

(0o0o0)

"Alright everyone, now the moment you've all been waiting for!" exclaimed Saburou as he stood in the center of the amphitheater with the five groups behind him. Thanks to the fact that all janitors in Nerima were trained in Martial Arts Clean Up the auditorium had been restored to decent shape quickly. "The judges have made their decisions and I will now read the results. In fourth place, the Sultry Sirens!" There was much cheering from the Kolhotz audience as the twins accepted a cash card for a small shopping spree in any Neriman store. "In third, PINK!" The four friends all bowed before accepting a book of coupons each plus a group cash card, though each of the girls tore out the coupons for ramen restaurants and stuffed them into Naruko's hands, making her pull Hinata in a hug as she knew it had been the Hyuuga girl's suggestion as compensation for going through with the whole thing when she'd have preferred watching Hinata from the sidelines as Naruto. "In second Place, Silk Flowers!" Cinnamon, Toshi, and Ranko all bowed as they accepted a cash card each and the book of slightly better coupons. "And finally, we have a tie, Fire and Water with Three Wishes!" said Saburou as the three genie girls, Kasumi, and Keimei all blinked and found themselves pushed forward to accept their coupon books, cards, and an all expenses paid vacation at a nice hot spring spa.

(0o0o0)

"Ugh, what a day, I'm glad I don't have to use clones to practice the songs and dance routines anymore in addition to whatever else I'm doing for training," said Naruto as the group rode the train home.

"Speaking of training, how did you master the instruments as well as the singing and dancing parts?" asked Toshi from where she was snuggled up by Cinnamon.

"Ah, I used several tiles engraved with the runes for a Time Stop spell in my underground training chamber. It allowed us to get four hours out of every hour we spent in there. I got the idea when I first learned the spell and how it makes the caster faster than everyone around him. The seals I used in the chamber limited the spell to inside it, so since none of you came into the chamber you never saw everything we were doing," explained Naruto.

"That does explain why you four were eating so much after a training session," said Ranko with a grin.

(0o0o0)

"Ah, home sweet home," said Jiraiya with a grin as the four ninja entered the home, each one carrying a bag of take out from a very good hamburger joint run by a cook who had grown up in America and moved back to Japan to take over his uncle's restaurant.

"Hey, Gishou, we've got food!" yelled Naruto as he looked for his little fox friend, only to hear a crash in the kitchen. Hurrying into the room, Naruto's eyes widened as he took in the sight of Gishou with four tails lying in the middle of the floor with several plates and glasses in pieces around him. "Gishou, what the heck happened to you? You only had two tails when we left today!" yelled Naruto as he helped the now much larger kitsune to his feet.

"I got my third tail today… but as I was wandering in the yard getting used to it I went into your training room and suddenly found myself growing my fourth one," said the kitsune with a groan. "I stumbled out and found myself so hungry I couldn't help myself and ate whatever I could in the refrigerator."

"Gah, the Time Stop tiles must have absorbed your newly released Youki and sped up time even more for you," exclaimed Naruto as he ran towards the training bunker and grimaced as he sensed the swirling temporal energies inside. Pulling a small metal soccer ball from his supply pack, Naruto tossed it into the room and hastily erected a super thick stone door with a cry of, "Doton: Doryūheki (Earth Style Wall) no Jutsu!" to seal the entrance to the bunker. A loud explosion from inside the bunker had Naruto tensing and waiting for a few minutes before the wall he'd created split apart to reveal the entire bunker's inner wall covered with kunai bearing seals with the kanji for cancel attached to the handle. "Phew, Seal Disabler Bomb is a success," said Naruto as the temporal energy had faded away.

"You're never using those seals again, got it?" said Jiraiya sternly from where he was watching from the side porch. "It is pure luck I taught you how to make that bomb so you could toss it into the middle of a barrier to disable it from the inside the other day."

"You don't have to tell me twice, Ero-sennin, no more meddling with the flow of time like that for me," said Naruto as he picked up some of the kunai and grimaced at the rust on them. "Just a few minutes in that temporal flux and these things are rusted beyond use, I'll have to melt them down and reforge them later."

"You can do that later, brat, Hinata's stabilized Gishou and we're all hungry," said Jiraiya as he led Naruto into the house.

(0o0o0)

"Hey, look at this!" said Hinata, distracting Naruto from the scroll he was reading after dinner. Following Hinata's gaze, Naruto saw three women on the TV talking to a reporter.

"You three were at the Nerima Idol Contest today as the mystery judges, what did you think Ms Aino?" asked the man.

"Well," said the blonde as a picture of her in her Ms V outfit appeared in the top corner of the image, "All the girls had great talent, if they go on to join the music industry we'll be having a boom from all the business they'll generate." Smiling, she looked at the camera and flashed a peace sign, the white cat in her lap looking up with a pout as she stopped scratching his ears.

"Thank you Minako-san," said the reporter before turning to the middle woman, a brunette. "Ms Kumi?"

The woman smiled as Ku-san's picture appeared beside her for a moment, a sharp contrast to the business suit style dress she was wearing with lots of plastic jewelry before saying, "I was really happy to see so many girls trying out, it's kind of like watching your younger sister imitating you and then blossoming into her own talent."

"And Hamasaki-san?"

Dressed in a long white dress, the last woman took a deep breath and said, "I enjoyed it, the girls were all amazing, it took lots of guts to step onto that stage and perform in front of everyone."

"Aino Minako, Koda Kumi, and Hamasaki Ayumi, fresh in from judging the Nerima Idol Contest, thank you ladies," said the man with a bow before the scene shifted back to the typical big desk with the anchor people behind it shuffling papers.

"We were judged by them?" yelled Hinata. She had developed a liking for Koda Kumi and Ayumi Hamasaki's works early on when they arrived in Tokyo. "Mou… I didn't get autographs…"

"Sorry Hinata-chan," said Naruto before blinking and grabbing a large envelope Saburou had given each contestant before they left from where he'd tossed it on the table in his hurry to deal with the time jutsu seals. "I forgot about this," he said before opening it and letting several glossy papers spill out. Picking them up, Naruto suddenly grinned before passing them to Hinata, who squealed as she found herself holding a signed picture each of Minako, Kumi, and Ayumi, plus a picture of each popular Hello Project! Group with signatures from the girls on the back.

(0o0o0)

From where Briar's giant plant had grown, a small flower pushed up through a crack in the concrete and opened to reveal a single red pustule eye in the center that glared around.

**Ugh, this chapter was a pain to write. I got writer's block several times even though I knew how I wanted things to go. The next chapter should be easier, it's mostly fights. I'm never doing a chapter like this one again.**


	11. Trial 10: Fight of Fists

**I don't own Naruto, if I did he would be in the spotlight more and Hinata would be the heroine. I do own my OCs.**

"I can't believe we have to eat up here," said Cinnamon as the group of friends plus Kasumi and Keimei ate their lunch on board Ren-oh-ki's ship form. All of them had been pestered by rabid fanboys from both Furinkan and several of the other local schools, which had really grossed Naruto and Naruko out and led to several boys being knocked out. The group had made a run for it when Shugo had appeared with several large bouquets, finally escaping into the cabbit ship to prevent him from getting to them.

"The price of fame, sister," said Thyme with a sigh. "At least it wasn't Hiryuu, Naruto, Akira, and me in a boy band; then we'd have to be dodging rabid fangirls… and the love potions, love notes, skanky photos…" Thyme trailed off as he huddled into a ball and rocked back and forth, muttering something about vicious she-devils.

Naruto could only nod in sympathy, remembering two days of hell where his fan club had decided to stalk him until Hinata grew sick of it and scared them off by using the Hyuuga Death Glare.

"At least Himawari is enjoying the whole thing, she was so fired up by watching us she hasn't stopped singing every song she can think of," said Kasumi. Her little sister had come back stage after Kasumi and Keimei had finished their performance and Kasumi's first instinct when Briar started going crazy was to run back to the room Himawari had stayed in to watch the rest of the performances. It turned out to be a good thing she did since Briar had apparently planted several of her mutant beasts on her way out to eliminate the competition while she was on camera and couldn't be blamed and all of them had come after Himawari. The rest of the girls had found Kasumi covered in scratches and cuts holding a sword of blazing star light over a pile of burning compost when they went backstage to clean up after the battle and Himawari cheering about how cool her big sis was. Keimei had gone to see her parents and been swept away in the crowd, then she was stuck helping the adults try to break through the thorn barriers that had kept them outside the amphitheatre.

"Hehe, she got along really well with Haruka," said Kimiko as the two little girls had become friends rather quickly and even now were pestering their parents for play days together.

"Personally, I'm just glad we're back to normal training, trying to cram all that practice in even with the time seals was brutal," said Naruto as he ate the teriyaki bento Hoshiko had made for him to share with Hinata.

(0o0o0)

"Huh, mail's here," said Naruto as he entered the ninja house, jokingly called the Kitsune Inn by his friends. Flicking through the mail to sort out stuff for Jiraiya apart from bills; coupons; and junk mail, Naruto's eyes landed on a bright yellow flyer bearing a fist and sword clashing. Turning it over, he was surprised to find it was addressed to both Hinata and him. "Hey, Hinata-chan, you know what this is about?" he asked his girlfriend as she put their bento box in the drying rack after cleaning it for use the next day.

"No, I don't," replied Hinata with a small frown.

"Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Hinata are hereby invited to the Clash of Fists and Blades (COFAB) tournament in a week's time," Naruto read. "This tournament is only open to those below a master level in their fighting style and features separate divisions for armed and unarmed combatants with a further division into Male and Female. At the end of the tournament, the best of each gender in armed and unarmed combat will be crowed the King and Queen of their division and the two royal couples will clash to determine which is stronger, the blade or the fist. It's a six day tournament to give everyone an equal chance to show their best with lodging provided at nearby hotels."

"Sounds interesting, you going to go?" Gishou asked from where he was watching television in a young teenager form now that he had enough power to hold the transformation even while unconscious. The new four-tail had been looking for a job over the last few days to help pay for groceries and managed to score a job as a delivery boy for Ucchan's Okonomiyaki, since Naruto and Hinata were already working at the Neko Hanten.

"It might be fun," said Naruto with a glance at Hinata, who thought it over for a minute before nodding.

(0o0o0)

"You all got invited too?" asked Naruto as he stared at his friends, each of them holding the same tournament flyer.

"This being Nerima, anyone making a tournament would just have to look at the newspapers to figure out whom to invite," said Ranko. "I can't wait to go in the blade division!"

"You'll have to get by me first!" said Cinnamon as she grinned at the redhead.

"Well, I'm bowing out; I'm not one for tournaments like this," said Kimiko. "And after our last contest I want to watch the fun instead of be in the middle of it all when everything goes FUBAR."

"Naruto, you going to enter the armed or unarmed group?" asked Akira.

"Armed, if I didn't use Nenshousaiga, I could go crazy during a fight; I'll just have to use seals to make sure I can't deal lethal damage," replied Naruto as he glanced at Hinata. "Be sure to fight hard, Hinata-hime; I want to face you in the royals match!" Hinata blushed, even as Miyuki teased her.

(0o0o0)

"I think this tournament has attracted quite a bit of attention," said Akira as the group eyed all the people in martial arts outfits and with weapons on the train with them a week later. The group of friends had managed to get a compartment to themselves, though it was a bit tight, even with Toshi and Cinnamon sharing a seat and Hinata practically sitting on Naruto's lap. Finally, Naruto got so annoyed he slapped some temporary seal tags on the wall of the compartment that gave them enough space to sit comfortably without changing anything outside of the compartment.

"I've seen enough weapons to outfit a ninja clan," said Hinata.

Thyme shifted his spear so it rested more comfortably on his shoulder before saying, "There are some impressive aura on this train, and a new one at every stop. This tournament is going to be awesome."

"A challenge without it being a life or death match would be good," said Naruto as he kept his arms wrapped around Hinata.

(0o0o0)

"Wow, there are more people here than I thought," said Cinnamon as the group looked over a large stadium filled with both spectators and contestants. In the center there was a large tiled arena with a large pillar at each corner.

"Looks like we go over there," said Miyuki, pointing to a line of people, some of whom carried weapons, leading to a table with a REGISTRATION banner over it.

"Then I guess that's where we go," said Akira as he lead the group over and flashed the lady manning the table the same smile his father used when he needed to charm Akane into letting him go out for a man's night out.

(0o0o0)

"Holy… that's a lot of options," said Naruto as he took in the weapon user registration form. It listed what was probably every single weapon known to man except guns. Naruto started checking off all the weapons he was proficient with, then answering a few background questions about his fighting style; for example: if it had both an armed and unarmed aspect, if he could fire energy blasts, if he carried a curse - standard Neriman questions for newcomers.

Hinata simply pointed to her own form, which had a checkmark for Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū as well as a box for family style where she had written down Jūken. She had also filled in the various soft-handed martial arts such as Tai Chi, Aikidō, Jūjutsu, plus a Ninjutsu option. "I honestly never thought of how many styles Ranma-sensei has been drilling into our heads," she said with a sigh.

"You think you've got it bad?" asked Akira as he held up a three page packet covered in checked in boxes. "You two haven't gotten all the crazy Martial Arts Trade schools Dad has picked up over the years like Ranko, Miyuki, and I have."

"You all have it easy!" said Ranko as she slogged through the same packet as her nephew and niece as well as the weapon one.

(0o0o0)

As the group was walking away from the registration table, Ranko glared at Cinnamon and said, "I can't believe you asked them if you could seduce your opponents."

"It's a perfectly valid tactic," muttered Cinnamon as they proceeded to their assigned hotel. They had a day before the tournament started to relax and enjoy themselves and they planned to do so.

"I don't like some of the looks we're getting," Naruto whispered as plenty of people seemed to be giving the group of teens nasty glares.

"I think it's because we're all so young," replied Akira. "Most of the people here are college students, seeing a bunch of high school students invited to this tournament must be a blow to their ego; it doesn't help that Miyuki and Kimiko have their ears and tails visible since they appear to be little girls dressing up. And you and Hinata are obviously younger than us…" Akira trailed off as they reached the front desk and presented their passes.

The desk clerk at the desk scanned through the forms and typed a few commands onto her computer before blinking and giving the group another glance over. "Just a moment please," she said before grabbing a phone from the counter beside her and turning away to murmur into it. After a minute of conversing with the person on the other end of the line, she placed the phone back in its cradle and resumed using the computer.

"Is there a problem?" asked Miyuki.

"Your group has been given the penthouse suite," said the woman with an apologetic grin. "I just wanted to make sure it was accurate. My boss will be down in a second to explain everything to you."

The teens looked at one another and then back to the desk clerk. At that moment the elevator in the lobby dinged and opened to reveal a brown haired woman in a body-hugging business suit and slacks. She walked towards the group with two large men wearing tuxedoes and wireless earpieces following behind her. "Thank you, Yuki; I'll take it from here," she said, causing Akira, Miyuki, and Ranko to turn and stare at her.

"Aunt/Big Sis Nabiki!" exclaimed the three Saotome before they ran up and hugged the woman, who hugged them back.

"Hey, kids, glad you could make it," said Nabiki with a smile before she took a folder from the desk clerk. "These are your key cards; they also give you elevator access to the penthouse suites, so don't lose them." The teens nodded as each one accepted a plastic card from Nabiki before she led them to the elevator with her two bodyguards following the group. "We're taking the executive elevator," said Nabiki as she lead the group to a larger than normal elevator. "This one is meant for a politician or celebrity with all their entourage to fit in at once, so everyone pile in!" It was a bit tight with Thyme, Naruto, Ranko, and Ryeka being forced to slip their weapons into stuff space before there was enough room for everyone.

"How come we're getting the VIP treatment, Aunt 'Biki?" asked Miyuki as the elevator shot up to the top of the hotel.

"I happen to own this hotel as well as be one of the sponsors of the tournament," said Nabiki as she ruffled the catgirl's hair before the elevator stopped. "So I pulled a few strings to get you all up here."

"I'm guessing Martial Eye is doing really well," said Akira with a grin as Nabiki used her key card to unlock the door to a suite that was definitely big enough for the whole group.

"Yeah, I definitely chose a good field to invest in," replied the brunette before pointing to some of the doors leading out of the main room they found themselves in. "This is the living room, there's an attached kitchenette, two bathrooms, and a set of five normal sized rooms connected by doors, three for girls and two for guys through those doors. Feel free to order anything you want from room service, I don't mind picking up the tab for you guys. Only rule is no boys sleeping in a girl's room. I'd love to stay and chat, but my partner got caught up in something and I have to keep everything running smoothly until she gets here. I'll see all of you at dinner; one of my staff will come and get you around six, dress nicely but comfortably!" With that, Nabiki and her bodyguards swept out of the suite, leaving the teens to get settled. Cinnamon and Toshi took a room to themselves at Ranko's insistence while Hiryuu bunked with Naruto and Thyme with Akira. Ranko, Ryeka, and Kimiko took one room, while Hinata and Miyuki were in their own.

As everyone reassembled in the living area, Naruto asked, "What did you mean by Martial Eye?"

"It's a special software program she's developed that uses special cameras to analyze a person, its main use is for the military to determine an enemy's strength, but it's also used in things like sports to make sure participants aren't on steroids. Auntie mentioned that the lenses are etched by martial arts Calligraphy masters to allow the lenses to actually view a person's ki, which is useful for tournaments," Akira explained.

"Sounds kind of cool, but what should we do until dinner?" asked Hinata.

(0o0o0)

In the end, the group decided to simply take it easy and watched a movie on the huge high definition tv. Winning the massive Jan-ken-pon gave Kimiko the right to pick the movie and she chose the American movie How to Train Your Dragon, which everyone agreed was a good choice. Kimiko sat with Flamie in her lap in his chibi form, while Ryeka had Ren-oh-ki, Hiryuu Kudora, and Naruto Gishou. Hinata had to smack Naruto when he started muttering strategies for taking down each breed of dragon since Flamie kept squirming when he did that and Kimiko didn't want to get scratched by his claws, but other than that the group had fun.

When dinner time came around, each teen was dressed in what could best be termed as business casual and ready for their escort, which was one of the bodyguards from earlier. Once they reached the ground floor, he led them to a private limo that brought them to a buffet restaurant. The other patrons could only stare as Kimiko and Naruto found a giant pot of ramen and asked if they could just take the pot to their table before settling for five bowls of ramen each plus some other dishes while Miyuki was piling a plate full of sushi and other fish dishes. LMAO, they WOULD. And that said nothing of the massive plate Akira had piled high with his favorite foods, or that Hinata was making comments on all the ingredients used in each of her choices and had a plate stacked full of cinnamon rolls.

"And I thought Ranma had a big appetite," said Nabiki as she watched the two hanyou devour their ramen at a fast but polite speed.

"My father can match Ranma-sensei in speed when the food is ramen," said Kimiko.

"And Naruto isn't far behind them," said Hinata as she sighed at the memory of the three males in question having a ramen eating contest at the Nekohaten.

"Well, if Ranma is training all of you, the fights over the next week will be very interesting," said Nabiki with a smile as she took a bite of her salad.

(0o0o0)

After a day of relaxing at the hotel, the stadium was packed as everyone gathered for the first qualifying round of the Male Hand-to-Hand part of the tournament. The whole group had been surprised when Ranma met them outside the hotel, only to nod as he explained Nabiki had requested him as a commenter for the hand-to-hand parts of the tournament due to his extensive knowledge of ki and various combat styles. Akira was the only member of the group participating in the current fights and made his way to the contestants' entrance while the rest of the teens hurried to get good seats.

(0o0o0)

Akira's gaze swept over the other contestants gathered in the center of the arena in the middle of the battle ground. He could sense several possible threats, but nobody seemed to be giving him much consideration. His evaluation was interrupted as Nabiki's image appeared on the giant monitor overlooking the stadium. "Hello, everyone, I'm Tendo Nabiki and I'll be your host for this tournament. With me are our guest commentators for the hand-to-hand combat parts of the tournaments, Saotome Ranma and Shirahama Kenichi!" The camera slid over to reveal Ranma and a heavily muscled man in a training gi sitting to Nabiki's right. "Ranma-san is the master of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū and Kenichi-san is the master of the Ryōzanpaku dojo, each of them can claim knowledge of a variety of styles and will be providing a breakdown of the more interesting moves we'll be seeing here." There was a moment of applause from the rest of the stadium while the male contestants all bowed to the announcer's box where Nabiki and the two masters sat. "As you can see, the ring is bound at the corners by four pillars. These project an energy barrier that will keep attacks from flying out of the ring and into the arena seating. Now I'll introduce our referees for the fights, Mr. Referee and Mr. Announcer!" The doors into the lower part of the stadium opened to admit two men. One was a grey haired man with a thin face and a mustache dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt, a red bow tie, black pants and black shoes. The other was a blond haired man dressed in a dark blue suit with a white shirt, a purple tie, and a pair of sunglasses that hid his eyes.

"Thank you Tendo-san! I, Mr. Referee, shall now go over the rules for the tournament!" said the grey haired man. "There is to be no killing at all, and all weapons for the armed part shall be given a special coating that will prevent the loss of limbs and make sure serious injuries only bruise. The decisions of Mr. Announcer and myself are final unless Saotome-sama or Shirahama-sama have some input that our merely human eyes missed."

Mr. Announcer cleared his throat before taking up the explanation. "There are several ways a contestant can automatically lose. Anyone who comes into contact outside of the ring, is knocked out for more than ten seconds; as counted by Mr. Referee or myself, or gives up automatically loses. No blows to the eyes or groin are allowed."

"Now, our computer will randomly select the contestants for the first round of eliminations," said Nabiki before her image on the screen was replaced by a series of brackets that were quickly filled in with the names of contestants and a ring number.

(0o0o0)

"Looks like sixteen fights," said Naruto as he examined the board. The first two fighters were even now making their way to the center of the arena and squaring off while the rest of the contestants watched them.

The first few fights were nothing much to the group; it was obvious everyone was trying to save their techniques for the later rounds. Akira was the fifth match and his opponent was so infuriated by the Saotome not a stance where Akira simply stood there with his arms behind his back. The other fighter charged forward and in classic Saotome style Akira twisted to the side and stuck his foot out, sending the other teen tumbling head over heels out of the ring. Akira sighed in disappointment and stepped out of the ring to wait for his next match. It turned out to be against an American boxer called Chibodee Crocket. The blue and pink haired young teen had used a single punch to KO his first round opponent, who had made the mistake of calling the skinny youth a "Wimpy Gaijin" and lost two teeth as well as having his nose broken.

"Well, maybe you'll give me a better match than that loudmouth," Chibodee said in slightly accented Japanese as he bounced up and down on his feet and kept his fists up to guard against Akira's attacks.

"I think so," replied Akira as he slid into a ready stance that would let him maneuver more easily. "First, tell me how an American knows about this tournament and speaks such good Japanese if you don't mind?"

Chibodee grinned and nodded. "My dad is part of the US forces stationed at Hardy Barracks; I've been raised here so I think I've got a pretty good grasp on the language. Now enough talking; let's fight!" Chibodee finished his explanation and charged Akira with a series of quick jabs that the Saotome heir twisted around to avoid.

"Pretty good form and footwork; this will be fun," said Akira with a grin as he launched his own punch, only for Chibodee to block it with his padded gloves.

"When it comes to boxing, I'm the champ!" said the American teen before he tried a two hit combination that Akira easily blocked. "Alright, try this out! Cyclone Punch!" Akira's eyes widened as a swirling aura of energy covered Chibodee's fist as it rushed towards him. The pig tailed teen barely managed to get his arms into a guard position before the punch hit and even then he was sent back several feet with his shoes digging skid marks in the arena floor.

"Pretty strong punch; now I'm fired up!" exclaimed Akira as he charged Chibodee before spinning around to strike from the American's left side with an overhead blow.

Chibodee surprised Akira by leaping back from the attack, causing Akira's blow to strike the arena floor and make a spider web of cracks appear. "If you're fired up, try this out! Burning Punch!" yelled Chibodee as his boxing gloves were engulfed in flames and headed towards Akira as he stood up and readied his own punch. Akira's fist snapped up and the two blows connected, energy clashing between them as they struggled for dominance. Finally, the physical forces caused the two boys to stagger apart, a thin layer of ice encrusting Akira's fist quickly melting in the sun as the flames around Chibodee's glove faded away.

"Looks like I'm the ice to your fire!" said Akira with a grin as a ki aura started glowing around him.

Chibodee grinned as well as his own fighting aura started to glow. "Let's settle this with one last technique!"

"Right!" said Akira as both teens prepared for one last clash.

"Bursting!" Flames started to gather around Chibodee's fist.

"Kachu!" Akira's fist started to glow blue as he fed ki into his arms.

"Machinegun!" Chibodee leapt into the air with his fist cocked back.

"Tenshin!" The glow on Akira's fist spread to cover his entire arm.

"PUNCH!" Chibodee thrust his fist forward, causing a small sonic boom from the speed.

"AMAGURIKEN!" Yelled Akira as he sent his own blow forward.

A large energy blast shot out from Chibodee's fist, where it was quickly joined by nine more swirling around it. However, Akira's fist blasted through each of the blasts and slammed into Chibodee.

"How?" gasped Chibodee as he struggled to breath as Akira pulled his fist from Chibodee's gut.

"You may be able to throw ten punches in a second, but I can throw a hundred!" said Akira as he panted over Chibodee and listened to Mr. Announcer finish a ten count and declare him the winner. Akira then grabbed Chibodee and pulled him to his feet, helping the American teen to the first aid station.

(0o0o0)

"Way to go, Akira-nii-san!" yelled Miyuki as she pumped her fist in triumph.

"If the rest of the matches are as good as that one, Akira might have some trouble," said Naruto as he eyed three contestants in particular who each had a strong fighting spirit. Pointing to them, he continued, "All three of those fighters are easily at Akira's level, the four of them are drowning out the aura of every other contestant with their strength." The rest of the group followed Naruto's finger and spotted a Chinese boy who might have been the same age as Akira. He seemed unable to sit still, constantly fidgeting and scurrying to get a ringside view of the action for all the fights. The next was a tall young man with a muscular build and thick eyebrows. He was currently fighting and had his opponent in a bear hug as the other fighter started turning blue from lack of air. The last fighter was a little bit younger than the large man and was standing off to the side with an indifferent expression on his face as he watched the fights. "Those three are the ones Akira has to beat to win the King of Fists title," said Naruto.

(0o0o0)

Naruto's instincts appeared to be spot on, since Akira's next opponent was the Chinese youth. As the two fighters faced off, Akira's eyes narrowed a bit. "Mind answering a question?" he asked the Chinese teen clad in a yellow fighting outfit and sporting a long ponytail that hung to his waist.

"Sure!" said the boy as he bounced up and down from pent up energy.

"You don't happen to be from the Joketsuzoku tribe or one with similar laws, would you?" asked Akira.

"Nope, I'm Sai Saici, student of the Shaolin temple. My master sent me to participate in this tournament to test my skill level!" exclaimed the black haired teen.

"So you know Kung Fu?" asked Akira as he raised one hand and made a beckoning gesture. "Show me!"

Sai Saici obliged, charging in with his hands in a claw shape. Akiara's eyes narrowed as he spotted ki forming the shape of a dragon head surrounding each hand. Leaping back a bit, Akira's eyes widened as large gashes appeared when the dragon auras skimmed the ground. "How do you like my Dragon Claws?" asked Sai Saici with a smirk.

"Impressive, but I've seen better," said Akira before launching a spin kick that Sai barely jumped back from. Akira kept using the force of his spins to launch move and more kicks at the Chinese boy, and though a few connected, Sai was able to use the impacts to leap clear before Akira could fully connect.

"You can't catch me!" taunted Sai Saici only to stagger as his last leap had him hitting one of the corner pillars of the arena. Akira lunged forward with a rising upper cut that sent Sai Saici into the air. Sai Saici tried to recover, but as he landed a loud crack signaled his right arm had broken.

"Ready to give up?" asked Akira, only for Sai Saici to lunge forward with his good arm.

"I'm not done yet!" yelled the Chinese youth, only for Akira to spin aside and kick Sai Saici into one of the pillars where his left arm hit first and another crack had Akira frowning.

"Better stop; you need to get those arms treated," said Akira, only for butterflies made of ki to start swirling around Sai Saici as he pushed himself to his feet and cocked his left foot while standing on the right and giant wings of green ki formed at his back.

"Shin Ryuusei Kochouken!" yelled Sai Saici as he leapt into the air.

"That move; it's a suicide move!" growled Ranma as he jumped to his feet with Kenichi following him. However, the ki aura erupting around Akira caused Ranma's eyes to narrow as he watched his son.

"Ok, try this on for size!" yelled Akira as he formed his ki into an orb in his hands. Sai Saici leapt into the air and preformed a dive bomb attack at Akira. "Mōko Takabisha (Pride of the Fierce Tiger)!" yelled Akira as he released his attack. Sai Saici's attack formed into a giant green dragon that clashed with the bright blue tiger Akira unleashed. The two beasts fought for dominance for several seconds before the dragon collapsed, revealing Sai Saici unconscious and falling to the ground, only for Ranma to leap in and catch him. Kenichi was right behind Ranma, taking a deep breath before placing his hands on Sai Saici's chest and forcing his ki into the unconscious teen. Everyone held their breaths before Sai Saici jerked and sat up with a gasp, only to have Ranma bonk him on the head.

"Don't go using suicide techniques like that unless you're at one hundred percent health!" growled the Saotome male as Kenichi nodded his agreement. Sai Saici meekly nodded and Ranma carried him away to get his arms treated as Mr. Announcer declared Akira the winner.

(0o0o0)

"Wow… that was awesome!" cheered Naruto, only to be smacked over the head by Ranko.

"That Chinese kid almost died –if Ranma-nii-san hadn't intervened— how is that good?" she demanded.

"He's a boy; big explosions are enough for him," said Hinata with a sigh. "Back home, when Naruto first learned about explosive notes, nothing could stop him from setting one off… inside his mother's kitchen when she asked him what he learned at the academy that day. When he showed up two days later he needed a cushion to sit down and his ears were bright red from being twisted."

"Hinata-chan!" whined Naruto, his ears dropping as he pouted at her. His attempt to win sympathy earned him a face full of water from Cinnamon, who blinked in shock as Naruto failed to change to Naruko.

"What the— how did you block the curse?" demanded the phoenix princess.

"Well I stopped by the Nekohaten and asked Cologne-sensei for some waterproof soap so I wouldn't have to accidently fight in the male and female divisions or cause a legal mix up," said Naruto as he wiped his face clean.

"Smart move," admitted Thyme before looking at the announcer's table.

"Alright, we're at the semi-finals and we have four very talented young men who will be fighting for the title of King of Fists!" exclaimed Nabiki and the audience roared in approval. "Our first match is between Domon Kasshu, representing the School of the Undefeated of the East," The black-haired Japanese fighter Naruto had pointed out stepped up to the arena and bowed to the judges table and then to Mr. Referee, "vs Inui Banjin representing Jushiki Muteki Ryu." A muscular man in camouflage clothing and dreadlocks with gauntlets on his arms shoved his way past Akira and his soon to be opponent to make his way to the arena and spat on the tiles beside him as he faced Domon.

"Undefeated of the East? Huh, what kind of title is that?" snorted Banjin. "I'm going to enjoy watching you lay at my feet as I prove that title is worthless." Domon's eyes narrowed and he lunged forward to deliver a haymaker punch to Banjin, only to have the dreadlocked fighter block with the gauntlets and send a shockwave through the arena from the force of the blow. Banjin then got inside the surprised fighter's guard and delivered a punch to his gut. The same thing happened a few more times, then Banjin grabbed Domon and threw him to the ground. "Hah, just like I said," gloated the camouflaged fighter.

"I get it," said Domon as he slowly climbed to his feet. "To hit you I'm going to need to break those gauntlets.

"You can try, but every surface has been angled to deflect blows; at even at five point fifteen centimeters they can deflect bullets. These Invulnerable Gauntlets are what make me invincible!"

"And yet, you hit like a little girl," said Domon with a smirk.

"I'm going to kill you!" roared Banjin as he lunged towards Domon, only to have the black haired teen twist out of the way and slam a kick into his legs.

"Those gauntlets might be good, but they're best suited for protecting the upper part of your body," Domon said as Banjin hit the ground hard.

"Shut up!" roared the dreadlocked fighter as he sprang to his feet, launching a flurry of punches that Domon countered. Suddenly, Banjin's bicep seemed to swell as he yelled, "Gofubaku (Mighty Axe Explosion)!" and rammed his upper arm into Domon's neck. "Hehehehehehe, Muteki-ryu makes my whole body a weapon, how do you like that?"

"You're annoying," said Domon as he cracked his neck and climbed to his feet.

"Stubborn brat," muttered Banjin before he charged Domon and went for a kick. As Domon moved to block, Banjin flipped up to do a handstand on the black haired man's shoulders and pinched the nerves there, followed by a grab and a throw that almost sent Domon out of the ring. "Hah, I doubt you'll get up from that…" Banjin's put down trailed off as Domon climbed to his feet with a cough that sent a bit of blood to the ground and raised his fist.

"This hand of mine glows with an awesome power!" As Domon concentrated his fist became surrounded in a blazing aura. "Its burning grip tells me to defeat you! Shining Finger!" With his blazing hand in a fist, Domon lunged towards Banjin, who brought both his gauntlets up to block in a cross guard. Banjin's eyes widened as Domon's glowing fist hit and broke through the gauntlets before slamming into his face and sending him sailing out of the ring.

"Winner, Domon Kashu!" yelled Mr. Referee, only to stop short on calling Akira and his opponent into the ring as Banjin charged back into the ring with the intent to rip Domon's head off. However, the appearance of Ranma landing a kick to Banjin's head sent the camouflaged fighter into dreamland and the arena wall.

"Hey, I could have taken him!" yelled Domon, only to freeze at the look Ranma shot him. The two locked eyes for a moment and then Ranma returned to the judges' table as Domon slowly walked off the stage.

Mr. Announcer stepped up to the stage, adjusting his tie a bit before speaking into his microphone. "Now, for our second semi-final round, we have Saotome Akira of the Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū!" Akira grinned as he sauntered into the ring and assumed the classic Saotome no stance with his hands in his pockets. "Vs Argo Gulskii, who fights with his personal Iron Giant style." The large man slowly made his way into the ring, his eyes locked on Akira, who slowly slid into a real ready stance as Argo approached.

"I have a question," said Argo as he glanced at the judges table. Nabiki gestured for him to speak. "As Akira is Ranma-sama's son, doesn't that give him a slight advantage?"

"You don't know the Saotome family," drawled Nabiki before Akira snorted.

"Dad is more likely to berate me for my techniques being sloppy than give me the win," said Akira with a grimace.

"And just for that remark, a thousand pushups when you're done with these matches," Ranma called out. Akira sighed and gave Argo a look.

"See?" asked the pony tailed teen as he tightened up his guard.

"Very well," said Argo, assuming a solid stance that Akira could tell would be impossible to break due to the other teen's strength.

"Saotome Akira vs. Argo Gulskii, Hajime!" yelled Mr. Announcer. For a moment both fighters stared at one another before Akira seemed to blur forward. He unleashed several punches and kicks at Argo that caused sonic booms to rip through the stadium, but the taller fighter weathered the assault and protected his vital spots with his arms before throwing his arms down with a yell. The resulting shockwave sent Akira stumbling back and Argo was on him in an instant, grabbing the slender teen in a massive bear hug. It quickly became clear to Akira that he couldn't wiggle free; Argo had enough strength to keep the pony-tailed teen from overpowering him and lifted Akira off the ground so he couldn't get any leverage.

"You won't break free," grunted Argo as he tightened his grip on Akira.

"Want to bet?" gasped Akira before a loud crack was heard as he dislocated his shoulder and used the resulting slack to slip free and get away from Argo.

"Do you really think you can beat me with one arm?" asked Argo as Akira took deep breaths to calm himself down.

Akira simply reached up with his good arm and pushed the broken one back into place with a grimace. "You were saying?" he asked.

"Impressive, now have a taste of this, Zakaretsu Gaia Crusher!" yelled Argo as he punched the ground. A shockwave erupted from his fist and caused spikes of earth to jut up from the ground towards Akira. The ponytailed youth slid aside from the attack.

"Bakusai Tenketsu (Breaking Point)!" yelled Akira, obliterating the rock spears that had almost impaled him. With a sweep of his foot, Akira had the resulting rubble in the air and pulled his fist back with a cry of "Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!" before his fists became a blur as they sent sharp rock shards back at Argo, who brought his arms up to guard against the improvised attack. As the barrage ended, Argo's arms dropped, only to see Akira up in the air and coming down towards him. Argo's arm snapped up in an uppercut that sent Akira back into the air, only for him to feel something wrap around his arm and saw a rope of ki stretching from Akira's arm to his. "Kamite Ougi(God Hand Succesion Move): Chain Yanker!" with the force of Argo's punch added to his momentum, Akira used the ki rope to yank himself back down foot first with a cry of, "Ryūsei Kyaku (Shooting Star Kick)!" The kick slammed into Argo's head, causing his knees to buckle before his head slammed into the ground and left an indentation in the arena floor. Akira flipped back and sank into a guard stance as Mr. Announcer started to make the count. As he reached five, Argo's body tensed as he climbed to his feet and Akira gulped a bit at the sight of the taller fighter standing after that power packed kick.

However, Mr. Announcer leaned forward a bit before saying, "Argo is unconscious, Winner Akira Saotome!" Akira blinked and slowly stepped over to see Argo's eyes were glazed over and blank.

"Huh, what a guy, to stand up while unconscious," said Akira before bowing to Argo as medics rushed up to get him onto a stretcher.

Domon cracked his neck as he made his way up to the ring. "This ought to be a good fight!" he said with a somewhat feral grin as he hopped onto the

"And now, the final round in the King of Fists tournament, Domon Kasshu vs Akira Saotome, hajime!" exclaimed Mr. Announcer as he brought his hand down. Instantly, the two fighters were clashing in a blur of fists and feet that made them appear to have at least four legs and fists each. The two broke apart and circled before lunging forward, both managing to slip past the other fighter's guard and deliver a punch to their cheek that sent them reeling back.

"I guess it's time to take the gloves off," said Domon with a smirk as a Ki aura started forming around him that Akira matched as Domon raised his hand up.

"Yeah, the warm up is over," said Akira before unleashing a spin kick that send a wave of Ki at Domon, only for the other fighter to ram his Shining Finger attack right through the Ki wave.

"Impressive, that was a match for my Shining Finger, but how about this?" asked Domon as his fist started to glow red. "This hand of mine is burning red!" Akira's Ki aura started to shrink into him as he pulled all his energy into his body, causing him to glow brightly. "Its loud roar tells me to grasp victory!" Akira took a deep breath and a shield of Ki formed across his arms as he braced himself for Domon's attack. "ERUPTING BURNING FINGER!" as Domon yelled the last part of his mantra he lunged forward, slamming his fist into the Ki barrier. Cracks started to appear in the barrier after a few seconds, and Akira was visibly straining to maintain his defense. Just as the barrier dissipated, Domon's attack fizzled out and he stumbled into Akira, who capitalized on Domon's guard being dropped from focusing all his power into attacking and snapped a kick into the older teen's stomach that sent him back across the ring.

Hissing in pain, Akira shook his arms as steam rose off them. "Oh man, that stings, note to self, focus Ki shield into bracers next time, air is too hard to maintain as a medium," muttered Akira as Domon got back to his feet.

"Oh man, that took a lot out of me… and you too," said Domon as he shook his head. "What do you say, one more big flashy attack each to see who wins?" Akira nodded and brought his hands in front of him to begin focusing his Ki reserves between his palms.

"Kamite no Ougi (God Hand Succsssion Move)," chanted Akira.

"School of the Undefeated of the East Ougi," said Domon as he also began focusing his Ki into between his hands.

"Shaolin Fist!" yelled Akira before releasing a giant blast of Ki in the shape of a huge open palm that shot towards Domon.

"Sekiha Tenkyoken!" yelled Domon as a he launched his own fist of Ki at Akira's. The two techniques met and strained against one another, sending a shockwave through the arena. A barrier sprung up around the fighting ring from the four posts at the center just as the two attacks detonated and sent their energy out in a massive explosion that was forced up into the air in a column of energy. As the energy column faded, Domon was revealed panting on the ground of the ring, staring at where Akira had been.

"What? Where is he?" asked Domon as he looked around frantically before feeling a surge of Ki in the air and looked up to see Akira with Ki swirling around his arm into a giant ball.

"Hiryū Kōrin Dan (Flying Dragon Descent Blast)!" yelled Akira as he sent the combination of the two attacks crashing down on Domon, who was thrown out of the ring from the massive explosion that the barrier barely managed to contain. Akira flipped in mid-air and landed on a piece of arena tile jutting into the air, preventing himself from landing out of bounds as the crowd stared in shock. "Well?" the pig-tailed boy asked.

"I concede, you were prepared and had a trump card; that was my greatest technique and you matched it," said Domon as he climbed to his feet and bowed to Akira, the judges, and Mr. Announcer before walking towards the medical tent as Nabiki presented Akira with a small trophy featuring a crown over a fist.

(o0o0o)

As Domon reached the medical tent, he smirked as he saw Chibodee, Argo, and Sai Saici all huddling together. After getting himself checked over, Domon went to sit with them. "So, what do you all think of that Saotome kid?" he asked.

"Pretty good, especially since he beat all our special techniques," said Chibodee.

"I guess we'll have to see how Schwartz and George do in the male weapons division, and Allenby in the female fist division," said Sai as Argo simply nodded.

(o0o0o)

"Alright, I'm starving; let's eat!" exclaimed Akira as the rest of the group met up with him outside the fighters' locker room. Nabiki had announced the Queen of Fists tournament would take place the next day, stating the arena needed massive repairs.

"Not too surprising considering how much energy you used," said Miyuki with a smirk at her brother.

"That place looks good," said Ryeka as she pointed to a Mongolian barbeque restaurant. Everyone agreed and headed in, where they got to pile bowls with their choices of vegetables, meats, toppings, and sauces. Needless to say, Akira ate enough for three people with Naruto, Kimiko, and Miyuki coming in close behind him and the manager was seeing yen signs in his eyes as he took in the piles of bowls they produced. The meal was only over when Nabiki appeared and settled their tab so she could get them back to their hotel room.

"Alright, good show Akira. Tomorrow it's time for Hinata and Miyuki to get their chance to shine," said Nabiki once they were back in the room. "And Akira, your father was pretty annoyed that you used such big moves, so the rest of you better try to limit those over the next few days." With those instructions, Nabiki left them to contact her partner and check the ratings the global broadcast of the tournament were making.

(0o0o0)

"Welcome back everyone, today we will see who will be crowned Queen of Fists!" declared Nabiki the next morning. "The rules are the same as the previous day, so give it your all, girls!"

The board quickly started the matches off and Hinata tried to keep from fidgeting as she felt the eyes of the audience passing over her. She was dressed in a black fighting outfit that gave her freedom of movement but was baggy enough to not show off anything she wanted to keep covered (Tifa's Advent Children outfit). Next to her, Miyuki was wearing a sleeveless red bodysuit with black sides and sandals over her paw like feet. "Are you ready for this, Hinata?" asked Miyuki as Hinata's name came up. Compared to the number of boys, there were only 32 girls competing in the bare-handed section and the matches would be going much faster. Hinata found herself facing a girl who reminded her of Sakura before Kurenai broke her from her fangirl mode. This girl had long flowing hair and wore a karate outfit that to Hinata's eyes seemed to be made of silk and barely any sweat stains while a green body suit prevented any skin but her hands and face from being seen.

"If that girl is my opponent, I won't have any trouble," said Hinata as she made her way to the ring.

Hinata's opponent snorted as the Hyuuga girl entered the ring. "I am Suzuki Kumiko, heir of my family's school and this is my opponent? A little girl?" she said with a snort of disgust.

Mr. Referee gulped as he could practically feel Hinata's aura spike in irritation, and he hurriedly started the match and leapt back to give the girls room. Hinata sighed as Kumiko charged forward and danced aside from the punch that could she saw coming from a mile away. "Please take this seriously," said Hinata in an annoyed tone.

"You little brat!" shrieked Kumiko in a voice worthy of a Haruno woman in a foul mood before lashing out with a spin kick that Hinata easily deflected with one hand. Every one of Kumiko's attacks were either brushed aside or dodged with Hinata's typical grace.

"You're pathetic, you claim to be the heir of your family's school and yet your skill is such that everyone else must go easy on you and you have appeared stronger than you are," said Hinata calmly as Kumiko tried to catch her breath and wiped sweat from her forehead. "You're a disgrace to martial artists everywhere and your ancestors must be ashamed of you for getting so worked up from this little bit of activity. Let me cool you off!" Hinata made a lazy swing of her arm and a gust of wind swept Kumiko off her feet and over the edge of the ring. Hinata was rather pleased, she'd been trying to master the basics of wind chakra manipulation for the Hakke Kūshō (Eight Trigrams Empty Palm) technique and it had come in quite handy in this match. She ignored the shrieks of Kumiko declaring her a cheater and made her way to stand by Miyuki, who was laughing at the spoiled girl's antics.

"Way to go, Hinata; hope my next opponent isn't so easy," said the cat girl with a smile before turning to the screen as she heard her name announced. Making her way to the ring, she was pleased to see a relatively fit-looking girl with her blonde hair in a ponytail except for a rather large forelock that jutted up over her head and then trailed down to just between her eyes. The combat boots, camouflaged pants, tank top, and army vest the girl wore made her look somewhat intimidating and competent. According to the selection board, her name was Rachel Nash. Rachel smiled slightly as she sank into her own stance with her feet wide apart and her arms up to block. She only raised an eyebrow as Miyuki adopted a crouching stance with her front hands pawing the air. As soon as Mr. Referee gave the signal to start, Rachel charged forward and tried to sweep Miyuki's feet out from under her with a low kick that flowed into a spinning back hand to hit the cat girl as she hopped over the kick. Miyuki blocked the blow and lashed out with her own kick that caused Rachel to pull back to protect herself as well as let Miyuki get some more room.

"You're pretty good," said Rachel with a grin as Miyuki landed.

"And you're not so bad yourself," replied the cat girl before she flexed her legs and pounced at the taller girl. Rachel was forced to move back as Miyuki turned the missed pounce into a handstand and spun around on her hands a few times in an attempt to kick her before dropping back into her starting crouch stance. Rachel launched into her own attack with a punch followed by a side kick that she chained together a few times as Miyuki cart wheeled out of the way each time. The cat girl let out an "eep" as she found her foot half off the edge of the ring after her last dodge and flailed her arms for a second to regain her balance as Rachel leapt back a bit.

Miyuki's eyes widened as the blond snapped her arms forward with a cry of, "Sonic Boom!" as a spinning blade of energy shot from her arms towards Miyuki, who leapt high into the air to avoid it, only to see Rachel crouching down and tracking her movement. With a cry of "Flash Kick!" Rachel did a back flip that left a brief flash behind her foot as it connected with Miyuki, sending her flying away from the ring.

"And it looks like a ring out for Ms. Saotome!" Mr. Referee yelled before Miyuki flipped and aimed her hands at the ground.

"Mōko Takabisha!" yelled Miyuki as she shot the ki blast right at the ground and used it to rocket back into the air. She came down front paws first on Rachel and knocked the taller girl off her feet so they rolled across the ring together. However, Miyuki's flexibility was just enough that she was able to get her arms and legs together and deliver a two-fisted punch and a two-foot kick to Rachel's stomach that sent the taller girl staggering across the ring. Regaining her stance Miyuki pounced and landed on Rachel, pinning her to the ground as her claws were suddenly sprouting ki blades at Rachel's throat. The cat girl couldn't keep the cat that ate the canary grin from her face as she said, "Got ya!"

"I give!" gasped Rachel. "I think that last blow dislodged a rib!"

"Ms. Saotome is the winner by forfeit!" yelled Mr. Referee as a pair of medics rushed onto the ring and eased Rachel onto a stretcher with Miyuki's help. Miyuki bowed to the judges and made her way back to stand by Hinata.

"Very impressive display by both of you," said Hinata with a pout. "Why do you get the good fighter?"

"Luck of the draw," said Miyuki.

"Hey, look at her!" exclaimed Hinata as she pointed to a blue haired girl dressed in a sleeveless blue body suit, a pink vest and shoes, yellow gloves, and with a belt around her waist easily knocked her opponent out with a single punch to end the first round of matches.

"Awesome," said Miyuki with a low whistle of awe at how much power the young woman packed into her small frame.

To the surprise of both girls, the bluette made her way over to them with a smile as her match ended. "Hi, mind if I join the two of you?" she asked.

"Sure," said Hinata, smiling as the older girl sat down Indian style.

"The two of you were pretty impressive," said the older girl. "I'm Allenby Beardsley."

"I'm Hyuuga Hinata and this is Saotome Miyuki," said Hinata with a small bow as Miyuki nodded.

"Nice to meet ya," said Allenby with a smile.

After a few minutes of chatting, the board settled on Hinata's name and she stood up, only to blink as Allenby stood as well. "At least you're going to be more of a challenge than that spoiled brat," said Hinata.

"Count on it, but this is as far as you go in the tournament," said Allenby.

"Hinata Hyuuga vs. Allenby Beardsly, Hajime!" yelled Mr. Referee. The two exploded into action with Allenby lashing out with two rapid kicks that Hinata blocked followed by a series of rapid punches that the Hyuuga Heiress weaved through. Hinata launched her own rapid series of blows with the same result and Allenby launched a series of kicks that Hinata avoided by dashing around behind the older girl, only to have to duck under a rear kick. Hinata went for a palm strike that Allenby twisted around followed by two kicks she had to practically drop to the ground to avoid before leaping clear.

"You're good!" exclaimed Allenby with a grin that Hinata returned. Both girls launched a kick and their feet collided and sent a shockwave through the arena. Breaking apart, the two leapt towards each other arms flying in a series of rapid punches before they had past one another and landed on the ground.

"Let's take it up a notch!" said Hinata with a smirk before pumping chakra to her legs to boost her speed as she seemed to vanish, only for Allenby to use ki to keep up with her. The two exchanged a series of high speed blows, only appearing for split seconds as they blocked or countered attacks. Finally the two landed back in their original positions, the only signs of their high speed combat some tears in their outfit and a few light bruises.

"Time for the big guns!" said Allenby with a grin. Energy formed between her hands and became an energy chakram that she tossed at Hinata.

Hinata's eyes widened at the energy disk and she quickly raised her hand as she said, "Chakura no Mesu!" and engulfed her hand in the medical technique. With a swipe of her hand, Hinata slashed Allenby's attack in half and it slammed into the barrier around the ring where it dissipated.

"Wow, I've never seen that before!" exclaimed Allenby before a whip of ki formed from her hands and lashed out at Hinata in a spiral. Hinata leapt clear of the attack, before suddenly darting forward and tapping Allenby's hands with a finger each. Allenby's eyes widened as her whip sputtered and died. "How the heck did you do that?" she demanded.

"Family technique," said Hinata with a Hyuuga smirk as Allenby tried to form another ki chakram, only to have the energy sputter out in her hands. "You won't be able to channel any ki outside your body for a few hours."

"Then I'll just have to pummel you into submission!" declared Allenby as she charged at Hinata, only to go right through her and tumble off the stage with a yelp of surprise as she hit the ground outside the ring and rolled to a stop facing back at the ring in a handstand. "Huh?" asked Allenby as she looked for Hinata

"Bunshin no Jutsu!" said Hinata from her place on one of the barrier pillars before leaping back to the ring floor as Mr. Referee declared her the winner.

"Good match!" said Allenby with a grin once she picked herself up and shook Hinata's hand before making her way out of the arena.

(0o0o0)

Allenby sighed as she finished getting dressed after a quick shower and made her way to a hotel where she took the elevator to the top floor and swiped a card key at the penthouse suite. There Chibodee, Sai Saici, Argo, Domon, and another man and woman waited for her. "Well?" asked the woman, who was dressed in a military uniform with her long green hair falling to the small of her back and a small quirt in her hands.

"That Hinata girl looks soft and gentle, but she's had some serious training, definitely in ninjutsu and possibly some pressure point techniques since my ki isn't flowing quite right," said Allenby as she threw herself into a chair with a sigh.

"This is not good, we only have two chances to get our people into the final round so we can impress the target and get invited to her facility," said the woman.

"Calm down Natasha, Schwartz and George shouldn't have a problem," said Domon.

"Considering that a sixteen-year-old took down four of you in a row I think I have a right to be worried," growled Natasha as she bent the quirt enough it looked like it would break in a second.

(0o0o0)

Miyuki pouted as she walked away from the ring. Her next match had promised to be good; the girl had appeared competent and eager to fight, only for her eyes to start watering as she approached Miyuki. It had only been Hinata darting in to stabilize her that had kept the unfortunate girl from going into shock after Miyuki's first punch put way to much cat hair in her face. A frantic Miyuki had leapt back and babbled in horror and Hinata and medics rushed the girl out of the arena where her parents arrived to give her some medicine.

"Sorry your match ended so badly," said Hinata as she walked up to her friend.

"I know, she wasn't up to our level but she had obviously trained hard and had a decent grasp of her style to make it this far," said Miyuki.

Hinata nodded, before wincing as she watched four names appear on the announcement board for the semi-final rounds. "Looks like it's me, you, and two others…" Hinata trailed off as an announcement revealed one of the girls was unable to continue due to sustained injuries and Miyuki would be facing Hinata in ten minutes. "Oh boy," said Hinata.

(0o0o0)

Ten minutes later, Hinata and Miyuki were facing one another across the ring.

"No going easy on one another, right?" asked Hinata as they shut out the sound of Nabiki doing their intro to the crowd.

"Right," said Miyuki as both girls assumed their stances.

As Mr. Referee started to raise his hand, both girls exploded into motion, Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken clashing with Hakke Rokujūyon Shō. Both girls skidded apart from the force of the attacks, having met blow for blow. Blue ki claws burst out of Miyuki's knuckles as Hinata covered her hands in two chakra lion heads and they leapt into the air and landed on opposite sides of the ring with their backs to one another. Hinata's top suddenly ripped into shreds, leaving her in just the kunoichi chain mesh shirt she had put on for protection while Miyuki's leotard had two bite marks torn out of it. Spinning on their heels, the two girls launched themselves forward for another high speed clash with their respective rapid strike techniques. However, this time Hinata managed to shut off a few of Miyuki's Tenketsu, affecting the cat girl's ki flow. Hinata went for a palm heel strike that Miyuki flipped over and countered with a kick. Hinata was forced to block since Miyuki's legs were longer than her arms and the cat girl curled herself into a ball as she spun to deliver another kick at Hinata that slipped through and sent the younger girl skidding back and grasping her ribs. Miyuki pounced forward as soon as she landed trying to land another blow, but Hinata had only pretended to be hurt and landed a rapid series of gentle fist strikes as soon as Miyuki was committed to her attack. Miyuki stumbled to the ground and Hinata leapt up to finish the fight.

"Tsūtenkyaku!" yelled Hinata, her foot glowing with chakra.

"Shishkabob!" gasped Miyuki as she used her hands to launch herself up in a rising kick that struck Hinata in the chest and avoided the chakra enhanced kick. Hinata tumbled to the ground as Miyuki collapsed, neither one moving for a second before Hinata slowly climbed to her feet.

"She passed out, that last kick was too much for her," gasped Hinata as she tapped a few pressure points and Tenketsu to ease Miyuki's recovery, causing the cat girl to regain consciousness.

Mr. Referee coughed before saying, "Um, girls, I never even said start yet," causing both girls to blush before he announced Hinata as the winner.

(0o0o0)

Hinata eyed her final opponent, who was already waiting for her and Hinata was pleased to see the girl wore a red gi that with matching pants to cover her legs with a black belt, a pair of white fighting gloves, white boots, and had her black hair cut short but styled into two buns like Tenten while holding it out of her eyes with a red headband. "You look like you've got some skill," said Hinata as she sank into the standard Jyuuken stance. "Let's see if it fares well against my family's Jyuuken."

"I should think so, my mother and father have passed both their fighting styles down to me," said the girl as she bounced on her toes while keeping her left arm up in front of her body and the right at her waist. "My name is Lin-li, I practice Tai-chi, Chinese kempo, and a variation on Ansatsuken style."

"Lin-li vs Hyuuga Hinata, HAJIME!" yelled Mr. Announcer. Both girls stayed still for a moment before exploding into action in a blur of punches, kicks, and blocks that were so closely matched it appeared more like a dance. After testing their offense and defense for a few moments, the two broke apart for a second.

"Hyaku Retsushō (Hundred Furious Palms)!" yelled Hinata as her palms started to blur.

"Hyakuretsukyaku (Hundred Rending Leg)!" countered Lin-li as she stood on one leg and her other leg became a blur.

The two techniques clashed and a series of small sonic booms were produced from the speed of the two colliding. Even so, some blows from each slipped through and both girls jerked from the impact of rapid strikes when they broke apart; it was clear both girls had taken some damage but the majority of the blows had collided and canceled each other out.

"Impressive, both of them only landed ten glancing blows," said Ranma.

"And they each launched a hundred attacks," Kenichi agreed.

"Hey Saotome, where have I seen Lin-li's attack before?" asked Nabiki quietly with her eyes narrowed. "And that Nash girl had a style that I just can't figure out."

"Later, Nabiki, they're about to go at it again!" said Ranma, his eyes locked on Hinata and Lin-li. Hinata had a chakra shroud shaped like a lion around each hand while Lin-li was gathering energy in her hands.

"Kikoken!" yelled Lin-li as she leaned back a bit before thrusting her left palm out to shoot a small energy blast at Hinata, who tensed before darting forward.

"Jūho Sōshiken (Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists)!" yelled Hinata as she punched through the energy blast with one of the lion heads and both attacks dispersed, however the second one was still strong and heading right for Lin-li.

The bun-haired girl reared back on her right leg with her left up in the air before thrusting her palms forward with a cry of "Kikou Shou!" A massive energy sphere formed in front of her palms and a larger one that covered Lin-li forming a foot in front of her just in time to block Hinata's attack. The lion head quickly faded away from the concussive force Lin-li was exerting and Hinata slammed into it at full speed.

"Hakkeshō Kaiten!" yelled Hinata as she threw herself into a spin, releasing a dome of chakra that clashed with Lin-li's technique. After a few seconds, the two clashing techniques reached a critical point and both girls were sent flying back as the techniques destabilized and exploded. Hinata used chakra to stop long before she could skid out of the ring, but Lin-li was dizzy from her technique and barely managed to recover in time to stop herself from losing by ring out.

"Time to kick it up a notch!" yelled Lin-li as she charged at Hinata, who prepared to meet her attack head on. "Spinning bird kick!" yelled the bun-haired girl as she leapt into the air and landed on her hands and spun her legs like helicopter blades to kick Hinata several times, with the force of the second kick breaking Hinata's guard. Flipping upright, Lin-li leapt forward with a cry of "Tatsumaki!" as she spun in mid air three times. Hinata was hit by all three kicks and sent flying out of the ring, only to be enveloped in a cloud of smoke that a log shot out of and imbedded itself in the arena wall, narrowly missing the top of Mr. Announcer's head.

The real Hinata appeared above Lin-li and brought her heel down with a cry of, "Tsūtenkyaku (Painful Sky Leg)!" Lin-li wasn't able to withstand the attack was engulfed in a massive dust cloud. As it cleared, she was revealed face down in the crater Hinata's attack had created.

"Lin-li is down!" yelled Mr. Announcer. "One, two, three, four, five, six, sev…" he trailed off as the bun haired girl stirred and pulled herself to her feet before shaking her head to help her clear it.

"If its kicks you want, try this! Tenshokyaku!" yelled Lin-li as she leapt at Hinata with a high kick before spinning in mid air to deliver one after another. Hinata managed to block each kick, but with the last one Lin-li pushed herself back to the ground as Hinata continued to rise, allowing the bun haired girl to land and set up for her next attack before Hinata could recover. Lin-li's cry of "Shoryuken!" as she lunged into the air to slam her fist into Hinata's stomach was the only sound heard in the stadium as the crowd waited to see who would win. Lin-li dropped back to the ground and landed on her feet, but Hinata fell down and landed, however she proved her skill as she turned that into a roll that brought her to her feet on the opposite side of the ring.

"Ouch," muttered Hinata, her hands glowing with healing chakra as she mended the damage Lin-li had dealt her.

"You're tougher than you look," said Lin-li as she braced herself and held her hands at waist level as energy gathered between her palms. "But you're a close range defensive fighter, you've neglected to prepare for long range attacks like this!" the bun-haired girl thrust her hands forward with a cry of "Hadoken!" as a large blue fireball shot across the ring at Hinata.

Hinata's Byakugan stared at the incoming attack for a second before she dashed forward and slammed an open palmed hand into the front of the fireball. Lin-li's mouth dropped open as the Bluette punched through the attack and crossed the ring in seconds, slamming a glowing palm into her stomach. "How?" gasped the bun-haired girl as she collapsed to the ground.

"One weakness of ki techniques is someone with enough control over their own ki can find a weak point in them and break through to hit their opponent," said Hinata. "And that last strike will disrupt your ki flow; you're done."

"Hai, I concede the match," said Lin-li.

"Winner, Hyuuga Hinata, our new Queen of Fists!" yelled Mr. Announcer as the crowd cheered, especially as Naruto hurled himself to the arena floor and ran to pull Hinata into a hug and kiss.

"I knew you could do it, Hinata-chan!" he yelled happily before realizing his fiancé was slumped in his arms, her body finally shutting down to recharge. "Hehehe, sweet dreams, Hime," said Naruto as he carried her back to the rest of the group in the bleachers.

(0o0o0)

**Alright, a few cameos this time around, and a few OCs based off of characters from a certain famous fighting series. I enjoyed writing this chapter, and the next one promises to be a blast to write as well.**


	12. Trial 11: King of Blades

_**I'm sorry for the delay, I recently got an Xbox 360 and I've been playing quite a few games on it. And my work schedule has changed, so I've had to adapt to that as well. Sorry for the delay with this chapter.**_

**Disclamer: I don't own Naruto, Rurouni Kenshin, G Gundam, or any of the other series I'm using, just my OCs.**

The first thing Hinata became aware of was the feeling of a pair of muscular arms wrapped around her. The second was of a bunch of large fluffy masses were keeping her warm. The final clue to her location was the scent of ramen mixed with sweat and slightly damp fur that could only come from one person. "Naruto-kun," murmured Hinata as she slowly opened her eyes to see a kitsune hanyou smiling down at her.

"Hi Hime, I'm sorry to say that my brother is down there," said Naruko as she gently lifted Hinata's head out of her lap and pointed down at the arena floor where Naruto, Thyme, Cinnamon, Ranko, Ryeka, and the rest of the contestants in the armed division stood.

"Wait, how are you out Naruko? Naruto-kun said he was using the water proof soap to avoid turning into you," whispered Hinata.

"He can still let me inhabit a clone body," said the vixen with a grin as she pulled Hinata to sit beside her. "Now watch, Nabiki-san is going to be going over the rules for the weapon users before we head back to the hotel for the night."

(0o0o0)

Down in the arena floor, Naruto and the other weapon users were watching as some of Nabiki's employees wheeled out a pair of large devices that resembled a copy machine as well as an airport metal detector connected by a thick cable. Nabiki waited while they fiddled with some controls before giving her a thumbs up and then turned her attention to the waiting contestants.

"Alright everyone, a few explanations about the tournament tomorrow. As weapons can very easily maim or kill, we will be adding a few extra ruled for the weapon users," explained Nabiki before holding up a small human shaped piece of paper with various mystical symbols on in surrounding the kanji for protect. "These talismans will prevent any and all damage dealt to you up until you would die, then they will teleport you out of the ring. However, you'll still feel the pain of hits and bones can be broken. The talisman will also block the feeling on any limb that would have been severed, preventing you from using it until your get healed up. Every one of you will need to go through the scanner before each match to get your talisman attuned to your current state, so make sure you're at your best tomorrow morning."

"How do we know these things will actually work?" asked a voice that caused Naruto's eye to twitch, it appeared Shugo was here.

Nabiki smirked and made her way to the scanner, where a blue light moved over her entire body. The copy machine shaped device made some noises before producing a talisman that she placed on her business suit. "I'll show you," she said as she walked to the center of the ring and pointed at Naruto then a spot in front of her. "You, Uzumaki, get up here!" Bristling at the tone in her voice, Naruto did as she said. "Alright Uzumaki, I want you to slice off my arm," said Nabiki as she rolled the sleeve of her business suit up to expose her arm from the elbow down.

Naruto's eyes went wide as he heard Nabiki ask him such a crazy request. "Uh…with all due respect Tendo-san…but are you freaking insane?" He was hesitant to draw his sword simply because he knew how sharp it is. "My sword can split hair with ease. One mistake on that charm and your arm is history!"

"Either do it or you're out of the tournament," said Nabiki with a glare.

"First I want a written contract that states no matter the outcome of this crazy test I'm not liable for any injuries to you, your lawyers can't sue me, you can't sue me, you won't let your brother in law punish me, you'll keep my fiancée from going postal on my ass, and that I can still compete in the tournament," said Naruto. Nabiki's eye twitched but she pulled out a piece of paper and started writing quickly before passing it to Naruto to sign. His eyes flicked through the legal mumbo jumbo before he signed by biting his thumb for blood. Then, faster than Nabiki expected, Nenshousaiga was in motion and headed right for her wrist. The whole crowd's eyes widened as Naruto's blade was repelled by a barrier just on top of Nabiki's skin and the charm on her jacket started smoking before peeling off and fluttering to the ground.

"Ow," muttered Nabiki as she rubbed her wrist. "I'm going to need to get that checked by a doctor," she said.

"Hey, you can't blame me for anything, my blade never touched you," said Naruto as he sheathed Nenshousaiga.

"Smart mouthed little brat," Nabiki growled as Naruto turned and hopped off the ring and back into the mass of contestants. "Alright, boys come tomorrow at your best and be ready to fight for the right to be king of blades!"

(0o0o0)

Naruto winced as an angry Hinata and a scared looking Naruko approached him. "Hinata-chan…" he squeaked out before yelping as Hinata grabbed an ear and tugged. "She asked me to!" he groaned.

"I know, that's the only reason I'm not disabling your chakra so you can't compete tomorrow," growled Hinata as she led the two kitsune towards the rest of their friends who had given Hinata plenty of space to deal with Naruto. "You nearly gave me a heart attack when you moved so fast right after signing, I expected a slower slice so you could pull back if something went wrong!" Luckily for Naruto, Naruko managed to calm Hinata down with a massage back at the hotel room and dinner at an American diner on Nabiki's tab was not a tense affair.

(0o0o0)

"Welcome back everyone. Today we have a few new judges to introduce to you," said Nabiki. Gesturing to the woman seated beside her, she said, "Shigure Kōsaka is an expert in both the creation and use of weapons," as a woman in her late 40's next to her nodded. "Kaname Kugatachi is also knowledgeable in the field of weapons," The next woman, who appeared to be in her 30's and had a blue body suit and red jacket covering her dark skin, smiled and waved with one hand while the other held onto the staff resting on her shoulder. "Next up is Nerima's own Mousse, master of Hidden Weapons style," Shampoo's husband gave the audience a seated bow, barely catching his glasses as they started to slip off his nose. "Our final addition for judging the weapon section is none other than my little sister, Saotome Akane!" Akane smiled from where she was sitting next to Ranma, dressed in a karate gi and holding her husband's arm. "And last but not least, my co host and partner, Mejiro!" A silver haired woman in a crimson and black dress stepped out of a back room and sat down next to Nabiki with a nod to the judges. "Now let the matches begin!"

(0o0o0)

"I wonder who our first opponents will be," Naruto said as he joined Thyme in leaning against the arena wall as they waited for their matches.

"I think you'll be dealing with a certain crazy swordsman," said the dragon prince as he pointed to a smirking Shugo taking his place in the ring and pointing his bokken at Naruto in challenge

"Bet you he doesn't last ten minutes," said Naruto.

"And if he surprises you?" asked Thyme.

"Then I will turn in my ninja gear, no way that loon can defeat me," replied Naruto as he made his way to the ring.

Mr. Referee glanced at both fighters before yelling, "Uzumaki Naruto vs Kuno Shugo! Hajime!"

"Hah, in a straight up weapons match, I have the advantage!" crowed Shugo, obviously forgetting the number of times Naruto beat him with Nenshousaiga disguised as a shinai.

Naruto didn't respond, simply cleaning his ear out and ignoring the Kuno heir.

"You foul scoundrel, have you no honor to at least face your challenger?" roared Shugo.

"Huh, did you say something?" asked Naruto with his best lazy Kakashi impression. Sure enough, just like with Gai, the laidback response got the intended reaction as Shugo charged with a howl of fury.

"Die fowl demon!" yelled Shugo as he brought his boken down in a slash that left a large gash in the floor of the ring as Naruto side stepped. "Face me like a man!"

"I am looking at you," said Naruto idly before reaching into a pouch and pulling out a paperback novel to complete his Kakashi imitation. The fox boy smirked before starting to read, clearly not focusing on Shugo. "Now I'm not."

"DIE!" Screamed the Kuno heir as he did a rapid series of high pressure jabs while chanting, "Atatatatatatatatatata!" with each strike.

(0o0o0)

"Ah, the old Blue Thunder attack," muttered Ranma, unconsciously rubbing the spot where the senior Kuno had at one time landed a single blow against him with the same technique.

Mousse chuckled as he watched Shugo try to land a hit on Naruto as the blond dodged every one of the kendoist's blows. "Kind of reminds me of some tapes Nabiki showed me of me fighting without my glasses.

"You hit me more times than Kuno ever did," said Ranma with a smirk.

"Quiet, Naruto is getting ready to wrap this up," said Akane, her eyes focused on the blond.

(0o0o0)

Shugo panted as he dropped to one knee, using his boken to support himself. It seemed no matter how fast he attacked, Naruto avoided all his blows. "Curse you!" gasped the Kuno heir.

"Yeah, yeah, you're so awesome!" said Naruto with a heavy dose of sarcasm on his voice as he finally closed his book. "I should just stand still and let you hit me like a training dummy, right?"

"I fight on!" roared Shugo as he lurched to his feet, boken raised for an overhead strike.

"Naruto's ojokujutsu (Humiliation Technique)," said Naruto as he unsheathed Nenshousaiga in a smooth slash that passed right in front of Shugo.

"Ha, you missed!" yelled the kendoist.

"Did I?" asked Naruto with a grin before he snapped his fingers. Shugo's clothes instantly exploded into small strips from the wind chakra Naruto had used to slice them into bits and the small breeze he released with the snap scattered them, leaving Shugo in only his boxers.

Shugo's face turned red, though from anger or embarrassment was anyone's guess, before he screamed and charged Naruto, only to have the fox boy flip over him and use Nenshousaiga's hilt to bonk him on the head. "I fight on!" yelled Shugo before he collapsed to the ground out cold.

"Pathetic, I didn't even work up a sweat," groaned Naruto with a sigh as he made his way back towards Thyme and gave the dragon prince a high five as Thyme's name came up.

Thyme saw his first opponent was an effeminate man whose black hair covering one eye and kimono with elaborate shoulder decorations gave him a girlish appearance. Thyme bowed to his opponent, the judges, and the referee but his eyes narrowed slightly as the other fighter barely inclined his head at all. "Thyme vs. Otowa Hyoko, Hajime!" declared Mr. Announcer.

A sneer was practically visible in the way Hyoko asked, "Thyme, what kind of name is that?" while eyeing the dragon prince.

"Everyone in my family is named after some kind of seasoning," said the multi haired teen as he quickly twirled his spear around his body in an intimidation tactic.

"Such a feisty boy," said Hyoko with a sigh before grinning. "Let's see how you fare against my left handed Baika Chūzen (Cherry Blossom Divine Arrow)!" as Hyoko finished speaking he swung his left arm out, revealing the character for 'om' on the palm of his hand. Thyme's head jerked to the side and behind him one of the waiting contestants screamed as a small arrow buried itself in his shoulder.

"Got any more cheap tricks?" asked Thyme. His answer was a blur shooting towards his face. Thyme's spear swung up to block the object, which appeared to be a thin ceramic shell, releasing a cloud of smoke that engulfed him. Thyme inadvertently inhaled some as he felt a stinging sensation all over his body. 'It burns!' gasped the dragon prince in his head.

"Kasui Busuen (poison fog), it won't kill you, but it will paralyze you," said Hyoko with a smirk as he aimed the small bow at Thyme, only to find the blade of Thyme spear whipping towards him, only to miss him by a hair. "Impossible, nobody should be able to shake off the effect that quickly!" exclaimed the drag queen wannabe.

"This is Nerima, the impossible happens here daily," said Thyme before pointing to the ground. "And I didn't miss." Hyoko's eyes flickered down and widened as they saw the strap of the small bow had been slashed, letting it fall to the ground. Even as he watched, the whole mechanism started to slide in half, totally useless.

(0o0o0)

"How the hell did someone who uses poison get into this tournament?" demanded Nabiki as she tightened her grip on the judges' table.

Mejiro frowned as she tapped on her PDA. "No clue, maybe he stole an invitation or a friend gave it to him?"

"Find out!" growled Nabiki before turning to glare at Ranma. "And why haven't you moved to stop him?"

"Because Thyme has this in the bag," said Ranma, his eyes never leaving the two figures in the arena.

(0o0o0)

"You little brat," growled Hyoko as he unsheathed the sword at his waist. "Taste the wrath of Bishamon's sword!" screeched the effeminate man before charging Thyme, who easily danced away from the clumsy slashes.

'This guy is worse than Shugo with a full head of steam, he's obviously a novice swordsman,' thought Thyme before coughing as a glass bottle was hurled at him. "More poison?" asked the dragon prince.

"No, Bishamon's powder and Bishamon's sword are a pair, once they're used together their true power emerges," said Hyoko with a smirk before his sword blurred towards Thyme, whose eyes widened at the much faster speed. Twisting aside, Thyme gasped as the sword followed and dug into his side. Thanks to his talisman, he wasn't cut, but the impact was enough to make his ribs ache.

Thyme's thoughts raced as he watched Hyoko smirk and lick his blade. 'High speed and auto tracking so suddenly? No, he's still moving like a novice, it must be the ability of the shadow instrument he used on me'

"Impressed?" asked Hyoko. "This sword makes any novice swordsman into an adept." Once again, he swung and this time Thyme used his spear to block the series of rapid blows that came at him. "It's an enchanted sword!"

"I've had enough of this!" growled Thyme as his foot shot up and slammed into Hyoko's gut. The feminine man stumbled back and pulled a small cloth out of his robes to wipe his sword clean. "So that's how it works," said Thyme. "You covered me in iron powder, and the sword's sheath is covered in magnets, giving it magnetic properties."

Hyoko frowned as his trick was revealed, but he quickly regained his composure and lunged forward, only to have Thyme smirk as he blocked the blow. "My spear has a few tricks of its own," said Thyme just before the spear burst into lightning. "And electricity can affect magnets!" The Bishamon sword suddenly leapt out of Hyoko's hands, sailing out of the ring.

"No!" shrieked the dark haired man as he tried to catch his weapon.

"Wide open!" yelled Thyme as he lunged forward, only to see Hyoko smirk before the six metal bands of his costume shot towards Thyme like a bear trap springing closed.

"Shadow Instrument, Rikudōko (Six Passage Beast)!" exclaimed Hyoko as the sharp points of the bands plunged into Thyme's sides. "A shadow instrument should be concealed for assassinations, but making it an accessory allows opponents to dismiss it!"

Hyoko's gloating was interrupted as Thyme's spear clattered to the ground as the dragon prince grabbed the three ends of the shadow instrument in each hand and tore them out with a grunt. "You are really annoying me with your cheap tricks," growled Thyme before crushing the Rikudōko and using it to flip Hyoko into the air before holding his left hand above the right with his fingers slightly splayed and curving towards one another. "Dragon Style: Rairyū no Hōkō (Lightning Dragon's Roar)!" bellowed Thyme as a dragon of lightning formed around his hands and then shot out to engulf Hyoko, who screamed at the massive shock. The shadow instrument user plummeted to the ground as Thyme smirked at him.

"Winner, Thyme!" yelled Mr. Announcer as the crowd cheered and security guards rushed out to take Hyoko into custody.

"Awesome finish," said Naruto watching as a young teen that appeared to utilize speed close to Lee's speed with his weights off combined with expert footwork and swordsmanship to send his opponent flying out of the ring a minute later. "Thyme, did you see that?" he asked.

"Yeah, pretty fast, no way most of the guys here can keep up with him," said the dragon prince as he took in the confused looks of most of the contestants. "But look at that one." The dragon prince pointed at a large man whose whole body seemed to be muscles except for his cone shaped head. "Definitely strong, anyone he hits will be flying out of the ring." True to Thyme's words, the cone head landed a blow on a tonfa wielding teen and send him crashing to the ground outside the ring.

"Well, the first round is usually the easiest," said Naruto.

(0o0o0)

"I want to know if there are any more killers in this tournament," growled Nabiki. "We were supposed to screen all contestants carefully and prevent psychos from hurting someone! That one boy who got hit by the arrow never got a chance to participate and his parents are furious!

"While it is worrying, some people are good actors and could fool our evaluators," Mejiro said as she tried to calm her associate down. "And everyone signed release forms, so we're not in trouble."

"You idiot, in Nerima the only reason they allow things like this is because of promises there won't be any deaths. Do you think Ranma would let his kids fight in a tournament of killers?" Swinging around, Nabiki pointed at Ranma. "Not a word Saotome!"

Ranma raised his hands in defense. "Didn't say nothing, but I've got an idea. If a judge is outside the barrier on each side, we can intercept any attacks that might slip out and hit the crowd." Kenichi and the other judges nodded.

"Ok, that's one worry off my mind," said Nabiki before whistling sharply. A second later, a woman in a business suit and Kakashi like face mask appeared kneeling behind her. "Yumi, I want you to start running a search on all the remaining contestants on my private computer, find any with a hint of being killers and bring me their names."

"Hai Mistress," said the office kunoichi before vanishing.

"Keep those kids safe or I'm taking every bit of flesh they lose out of you!" growled Nabiki. Ranma, Keiichi, Akane, and Kaname all made their way to stand outside the ring, leaving Mousse and Shigure with Nabiki.

(0o0o0)

"Looks like I'm up," said Naruto as his name was revealed. His opponent was Seta Soujirou and Naruto's eyes narrowed slightly as he saw he was facing the boy he had pointed out to Thyme with incredible speed.

"I must say, I was impressed with how you handled that buffoon," said Soujirou with a smile as the two teens sized one another up.

"Shugo isn't much of a challenge," said Naruto, ignoring the cry of denial from the medical tent. "You on the other hand, have some impressive speed."

"Thank you, it is the Heaven Sword style, a family style passed down from my great grandfather," said the black haired teen with a smile.

"Seta Soujirou vs Uzumaki Naruto, Hajime!" yelled Mr. Announcer.

"Let's see how you keep up with my speed," said Soujirou with a smile as he started stamping his left foot on the ground. The taps rapidly gained speed and suddenly Soujirou was in a crouch and darting forward so fast only the sight of dust kicked up as his feet told Naruto were Soujirou was.

Naruto's eyes turned into spirals as his Issokugan (Fast Runner Eye) activated on instinct just in time for him to twist aside from a strike before Soujirou appeared behind Naruto. The kitsune boy was extremely glad the Uzumaki bloodline didn't need conscious thought to activate since usually in the time it would take to channel chakra to his eyes he'd be dead. He had noticed that thanks to his constant speed training from Ranma he'd been using it less and less lately, but once again it had saved his life just like during the battle between Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade when it allowed him to avoid Kabuto's attacks and do enough damage in a single move to take the traitor out of the fight.

(0o0o0)

"What was that?" demanded Nabiki. "He moved even faster than I've seen Ranma move using his best speed technique."

"Shukuchi (Reduced Earth)," murmured Shigure.

"Moving from normal speed to top speed in an instant with just leg work alone," said Mousse. "Unlike the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken, it's not used to deliver multiple blows; it's moving your whole body so fast it appears the distance between the fighters has shrunk."

(0o0o0)

"Impressive, you dodged it in an instant," said Soujirou as he turned to face Naruto once again.

"I've trained to move at high speed, my eyes can follow almost anything," said Naruto as he assumed a defensive stance.

"Really? Well, you should know, that was three steps below Shukuchi," said Soujirou with a smile. Naruto's eyes narrowed as the other teen started stamping his foot again. "I honestly thought that would be enough, but I appear to have misjudged you."

"Bring it on," growled Naruto.

"This time, I'll be two steps below Shukuchi," declared Soujirou before he tensed and vanished. Naruto barely avoided a downward slash as Soujirou appeared before moving again, this time running right up one of the barrier pillars to launch an attack at Naruto's back. Naruto spun and blocked with Nenshousaiga, but Soujirou once again took off as soon as his feet hit the ground.

Even as Soujirou lunged towards him, Naruto made his move, flames surrounding Nenshousaiga as he dashed forward with a flash of Shunshin speed. "Kaen Bakushin Giri (Flame Dash Slash)!" roared Naruto as the two blades clashed. Naruto reappeared near the edge of the ring, only for his eyes to widen as Soujirou appeared behind him and slashed. Naruto felt his clothes tear and hissed as the pain of the blow hit his nerves. If it hadn't been for his talisman, the blond knew he'd be sporting a nasty slash wound on his back. 'He dodged a Shunshin move!' Naruto thought.

"I'll be sure to finish you off this time, one step short of Shukuchi," said Soujirou before he vanished, this time striking rapidly from multiple angles at Naruto, who parried each blow with Nenshousaiga and the Issokugan. Naruto suddenly leaned back, only barely avoiding an upward slash that nicked the edge of his clothes. Soujirou reappeared across the ring, a look of surprise on his face. "I am truly impressed. I have never seen anyone besides my father and grandfather keep up with this speed, and here you are younger than me able to counter my attacks."

"I've been fighting since I was six and training for life and death battles," said Naruto as he raised Nenshousaiga in a guard.

"I see. Then let's see if I will have to go to Shukuchi against you," said Soujirou before he took off once more. Naruto's eyes flickered as he saw multiple impacts all around him with flickers of Soujirou appearing every time he changed direction.

Using Nenshousaiga, Naruto parried several attacks before flames once more surrounded Nenshousaiga. "Ranran Kitsune Senpuu (Flaming fox Whirlwind)!" growled the fox boy before he spun, unleashing a wall of flame around him that sent Soujirou leaping back.

"My turn to go on the offensive," said Naruto before blurring into a Shunshin. Soujirou blinked for a second before whipping around to block a strike from Naruto, and then the audience could only see blurs as the two teens moved with their enhanced speed techniques. After a few seconds the two broke apart and landed on opposite sides of the ring.

"Very impressive, you are indeed skilled," said Soujirou with a grin as he assumed a Battōjutsu stance. "This is my school's only named technique, Shun Ten Satsu (Instant Heaven Murder). You won't even realize you're hit until your body shuts down thanks to these talismans, otherwise this technique would live up to its name."

"I see. Then I will meet it head on!" said Naruto as he sheathed Nenshousaiga.

Both teens tensed before Soujirou inched forward and vanished from sight, Naruto following an instant later with Sunshin. Both unsheathed their blades and there was a moment of impact before a crack appeared on Soujirou's sword just before it shattered and the black haired teen went flying into the air as Naruto landed with Nenshousaiga upraised. "Shiden (Swordflash)!" said Naruto as Soujirou hit the ground.

(0o0o0)

"Did Naruto just perform battojutsu while using Shunshin?" asked Miyuki as she glanced at Hinata.

"No," declared the Hyuuga Heiress. "Naruto-kun wasn't just using a single Shunshin, he kept going and in the time the move would normally end he made five steps, each one at Shunshin speed, making him as fast as his opponent. His opponent was going at his max speed but Naruto kept speeding up." If she hadn't had her Byakugan active, Hinata never would have been able to pick out those details and she found herself wondering if Naruto would be able to keep up with Lee now. "And Nenshousaiga wouldn't lose to a mere mortal blade unless Naruto was totally outclassed."

(0o0o0)

"I've got to thank you, until this point I wasn't able to achieve such a mastery of my Shunshin," said Naruto as he sheathed Nenshousaiga.

"It was impressive," said Soujirou as he lay on the ground. "You drew with such speed my sword was barely able to block yours for a second before it was obliterated. I surrender."

"Winner, Uzumaki Naruto!" yelled Mr. Announcer.

"Man, wish I could have some Ichiraku ramen, I'm hungry," muttered Naruto as he made his way back to join Thyme, who gave him a single raised eyebrow.

"Showing off much?" asked the dragon prince.

"So says the guy who shot a Lightning Dragon at the guy he'd been dominating the whole fight," retorted Naruto. "Besides, you've got bigger things to worry about," he continued as he pointed at the board to show Thyme was now up against Senkaku, who turned out to be the large cone headed man they'd seen earlier.

"The bigger they are," muttered Thyme as he approached the ring while twirling his spear.

"This is all the mighty Senkaku has to face? A little boy with a stick?" demanded the big man. Up close, Thyme noticed what appeared to be a skin tight leotard was actually a fine metal mesh, extremely flexible and providing excellent defense.

"Yeah, I'm more than enough for you," said Thyme.

"Senkaku vs Thyme, Hajime!" yelled Mr. Referee before leaping back.

Senkaku lashed out with one of the knuckle blades he carried, only for Thyme to side step the blow with a snort. "You might as well telegraph your moves, I've seen a housewife that throws faster punches." Left unsaid was that said Housewife happened to be right behind Senkaku and was one of the scariest women Thyme knew after his own mother.

"So a speed game is it?" asked Senkaku before he blurred and reappeared behind Thyme, his knuckle blades aiming for Thyme's arms in hopes of disabling them, only to see them pass right through the dragon prince.

"You're slow, I've been over here for a few seconds," said Thyme with a smirk off to the side.

"After images? That's a trick I know as well!" exclaimed Senkaku before he appeared behind Thyme again with his knuckle blades blurring. "Taste my Mincing Blow!"

Thyme simply rolled to the ground, shot his legs between Senkaku's legs and scissor kicked, knocking the muscled man to the ground. "Come on, I shouldn't be able to break your stance so easily," he said as he flipped to his feet and smirked down at the fallen giant.

"I'm going to make you pay for that!" growled Senkaku as he pushed himself up and lunged at Thyme as if to impale the dragon teen on his cone shaped head.

"Olé!" yelled Thyme as he twisted aside and let Senkaku, unable to stop himself in time, skid right out of the ring before crashing to the floor of the arena. "As I said, the bigger they are, the harder they fall," Thyme muttered as Mr. Referee declared him the winner by ring out.

"Disappointed?" asked Naruto as he took in the frown on Thyme's face.

"Barely a challenge, I thought with the combination of speed and strength he would be harder to face, but he was easily tricked," said Thyme.

"We have a saying in my village for Chunin: 'If your body is weak, train your body, if your mind is weak study hard, only with mind and body in balance can you be a good Shinobi.'" Naruto quoted.

"Then that guy definitely needs to train his mind," said Thyme as Senkaku stormed out of the arena with a glare at Thyme that the dragon prince answered with a look of disdain.

"Still, only eight people left, these will be the really tough matches," said Naruto.

"Just hope we're not facing one another in this round," said Thyme before blinking at the orange haired teen stepping into the ring in a fancy dress uniform with a blue cape on his left shoulder and a rapier in his hand. "Please tell me this isn't a second Shugo!"

"I'll find out in a few seconds," said Naruto as his name came up facing the duelist and he stepped towards the ring. "George de Sand? That's not Japanese, where are you from?" he asked as he placed one finger on Nenshousaiga's hilt ready for a quick draw.

"I'm the son of the French liaison to this wonderful country, and I desire to see how my blade matches up against Japan's formidable katana," said the teen with a small courtly bow.

"Well, at least unlike my first opponent you appear to have some skill backing up your looks," said Naruto with a smirk.

"Uzumaki Naruto vs George de Sand, Hajime!" yelled Mr. Announcer.

"En garde!" said George as he raised his rapier in a salute. Naruto simply assumed a Battōjutsu stance and the two stared one another down before a leaf swirled through the air between them. Then there was a ring through the stadium as the two blades clashed, neatly bisecting the leaf. "Very good, you are the first person to parry my attack so well," said George with a smile, "but you forget, my blade is not a katana or broadsword!" With that, George's rapier slipped around Nenshousaiga and jabbed at Naruto's thigh with his height advantage over Naruto.

Naruto leapt back with a yelp of pain and glared at George. "Okay, you're definitely skilled if you can make such fast attacks with pinpoint accuracy."

"The de Sand family has a long history of being the knights in charge of protecting the Royal Family of la belle France. While the Musketeers are rather well known, my family has solely practiced the elegant art of the blade passing it down from father to son," said George. "Do you wish to surrender?"

"You obviously haven't learned anything from my previous fights," said Naruto with a smirk before he dashed forward with an upward slash that George leaned back to evade, only to see his cloak go flying into the air and out of the ring.

"Most impressive," said George before the two fighters lunged towards one another, their blades clashing and straining against one another.

(0o0o0)

"Both of them are very good," said Mousse with a grin as he glanced at Shigure.

"Yes," answered Shigure. "Here in Japan we have little experience with such piercing blades except for kunai and spears. For Naruto-san to keep up with his opponent's rapid jabs speaks highly of his adaptability."

"But neither of them is using big flashy moves yet," said Nabiki.

(0o0o0)

"Okay, this is getting boring," said Naruto before he leapt back from George's latest lunge, letting the orange haired duelist stumble as the blonde ninja grabbed and threw several shuriken at him to test his defenses against ranged attacks. George easily parried each of the small projectiles and grimaced.

"So you'll be fighting at range now?" he asked Naruto.

"Maybe, depends on if you've got any type of ranged move," said Naruto with a smirk. "A good fighter should be prepared for all types of situations."

"Then you'll get to see my family's secret technique, Rose Bits!" yelled George as several red spheres of energy appeared around him before forming into rose shapes that rocketed towards Naruto like guided missiles. Naruto leapt clear of the initial barrage, but the energy roses changed direction and homed in on him again, hitting with a small explosion that threw him back.

"Those things must have quite a bit of energy to pack such a wallop," said Naruto.

"Yes, and that's not all, Rose Screamer!" cried George as the roses swirled around his blade, forming a giant version of George's rapier as they did so. George swung the giant energy blade and Naruto let out a yelp as he rolled beneath the attack.

"Kuuchuuhottokattohou (Hot Cutting Method)!" yelled Naruto as he created a giant blade of wind and fire around Nenshousaiga to counter George's attack. The two giant energy blades clashed, straining against one another as the two teens struggled to overpower one another.

"Truly astounding that one so young can wield such power," said George.

"I'm impressed someone not from Japan or China can manipulate their energies so well," said Naruto with a smirk before kicking out at George's knee. As the French teen stumbled, Naruto brought Nenshousaiga down for a finishing blow only to have the pommel of George's rapier hit him in the chin and knock him back. The giant energy blades both teens were wielding flickered out as they both lost their control.

George and Naruto stared at one another as the crowd around them cheered at the great match so far. "It's time to finish this," said George. "Rose Hurricane!" as George thrust his hand out, hundreds of the energy roses formed and shot at Naruto, each one firing a small energy beam as they swirled around him in a red tornado and bound Naruto's arms to his side for a moment before he broke free and started swinging away at them. "You'll never break free of my tornado!" yelled George as the roses kept swirling no matter how many Naruto dispersed.

"Never underestimate the power of an Uzumaki!" yelled Naruto before he started spinning with a cry of, "Fūton: Shinkūha (Wind Style: Vacuum Wave)!" to release several sharp blades of wind that wiped out the roses surrounding him.

"I won't give up that easily," yelled George as he lunged forward with rapier prepared for a thrust, only to have Nenshousaiga knock his blade from his hand and out of the ring followed by Naruto grabbing his chest and slamming the older teen to the ground and placing Nenshousaiga at his throat.

"Well, do you give up?" asked Naruto.

"I do, never have I faced one with so much power in such a young body, I wish I could fight you when you achieve you prime and full strength," said George.

"Winner, Uzumaki Naruto!" yelled Mr. Announcer to massive cheers from the crowd as Naruto helped George to his feet and towards the infirmary.

(0o0o0)

"You should go and watch your friend's fight," said George as Naruto got him to the nurses.

Naruto nodded and walked out, seeing Thyme flexing his arms and waiting on the stage as a teen in a brown trench coat and red, black, and yellow jester mask walked towards the ring carrying a pair of large blades with a handle jutting out like on a tonfa. "Schwartz Bruder eh?" muttered Naruto as he noticed that there were on the semi final rounds already. According to the screen, if Thyme won Naruto would face him and the winner of that match would face the winner of the next one. "Win this match Thyme and we're facing one another in the final rounds!" yelled Naruto.

"Your friend seems to have quite the confidence in you," said Schwartz as he stared down Thyme.

"Probably because he knows I'll win," said Thyme. He hadn't really exerted himself much up to this point so he was fairly confident of winning the tournament unless he had to face Naruto.

"Thyme vs Schwartz Bruder, Hajime!" yelled Mr. Referee.

"I'll end this in one attack!" yelled Thyme as he swung his spear with a cry of "Hito Ryu-Zan Ha (Flying Sword of the Dragon)!" to send a chi wave at Schwartz. The attack hit the trench coated fighter, only to have him split into five copies, some of which appeared to be standing in mid air. "Shadow Clones? That won't work!" yelled Thyme as he charged forward with his spear blurring to strike each one, only for them to each easily block his attack before merging back into a single body that landed a heavy punch to Thyme's gut. The dragon prince dropped his spear as he doubled over the fist.

"You're getting too riled up," said Schwartz in a scolding tone. "Don't let your earlier victories get to your head. Unlike those two, I am no ordinary fighter!" As if to prove his words, Schwartz blurred forward and sent a barrage of rapid blows at Thyme that sent him reeling back. Schwarz dropped his giant bladed tonfa to the ground and pulled several knives out from the sleeves of his trench coat.

(0o0o0)

"Yep, just like Herb, get him riled up and he gets stronger but sloppy," muttered Ranma. "Looks like I'm going to have to pound that out of him, a few humiliating spars are in order for everyone to make sure they don't get cocky. And have Naruto spar with tons of Shadow Clones and all his Ninja moves, Thyme should be better prepared for a guy like this."

(0o0o0)

"Where's that strength you were so proud of?" Schwartz taunted Thyme as he hurled a seemingly endless supply of throwing knives at the teen who was blocking the attacks with his bracers.

"Right here, Dragon Style: Karyū no Hōkō (Fire Dragon's Roar)!" bellowed Thyme as he whipped his arms down and a dragon of flame shot out of his mouth towards Schwartz.

The mask man settled into a horse stance and yelled, "Good try, but you're still not focused enough! Kiah!" before punching and unleashing a small blast of energy that punched through the dragon and slammed into Thyme.

"How?" gasped Thyme as he slumped to his knees, the combination to the energy blast to the gut right after pouring so much of his energy into the fire dragon taking its toll on him.

"Your attack is very strong, but it is large to make up for its lack of maneuverability," said Schwartz. "An attack just as strong but more tightly focused can break through it with ease. Learn to master your power better." With that, Schwartz picked up his giant tonfa and holding them in front of his chest before raising them into the air and then to either side of his body in a T shape. The masked teen started spinning rapidly in place, quickly becoming a blur that started moving around Thyme so fast the dragon prince was trapped in a circle of black tornadoes. "Sturm Und Drang (Storm and Urge)!" yelled Schwartz as he rapidly slammed into his opponent, his attacks moving so fast Thyme couldn't keep track of his position or guard against the attacks. After a few seconds Schwartz clearly got tired of the fight and sent Thyme flying out of the ring with a final attack.

"Winner, Schwartz Bruder!" yelled Mr. Referee as the trench coat wearing teen slowed to a stop and stared down at Thyme.

"Pathetic," said the older teen before turning and making his way out of the ring as Naruto ran up to Thyme.

"You really lost your cool there man," said the fox boy. "Ranma-sensei is going to be training you hard for that." Any further words were cut off as a giant block of ice engulfed Thyme's body.

"Maybe that will cool you off you idiot!" yelled Cinnamon's voice as everyone turned to see she had her hand up from casting the spell on her brother.

"Thanks a lot Cinnamon, now I have to carry him to the infirmary!" yelled Naruto before hoisting the frozen teen onto his back and staggering towards the medical tent, where the medics were already preparing to treat Thyme for frostbite.

(0o0o0)

"And now, the first of our semi-final fights!" declared Mr. Announcer once Naruto had gotten back from helping defrost Thyme. The dragon boy was currently surrounded by space heaters and wrapped in several layers of blankets as sneeze after sneeze wracked his body. "A Ninja from a hidden village, Uzumaki Naruto is the youngest of the four finalists and specializes in ninjutsu and Kenjutsu and is part of the Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū! His opponent is Schwartz Bruder is an exchange student from Germany and fights with his own German style ninjutsu. Fighters ready?" asked Mr. Announcer as the two ninja walked out to face one another and nodded. "Hajime!"

Naruto pulled a single shuriken and sent it flying across the ring with a cry of "Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, Kage Shuriken!"

Schwartz's eyes widened behind his mask as the single shuriken became thirty each with a second shuriken in its blind spot. Swinging around his massive blades, Schwartz spun them rapidly to form a barrier that deflected the replicated shuriken, the cloned ones disappearing and the two originals falling to the ground.

"Impressive, our youngest contestant is able to replicate his weapons and even hide them in the shadow of the other weapons he throws!" yelled Mr. Announcer.

"Cute trick, but how about this?" asked Schwartz as he whipped his arm forward, sending a throwing dagger at Naruto, rapidly followed by several more until his arms were a blur and it was all Naruto could do to defend with Nenshousaiga. Finally, a knife slipped through Naruto's guard and buried itself in his chest, only for his body to explode in a cloud of smoke as he dropped down at Schwartz with Nenshousaiga. "Kage Bunshin?" asked the masked ninja as he blocked and tossed Naruto away with both his blades.

"You're pretty good, better than I thought," said Naruto as he landed and reached into his weapon pouch to pull out several Hiraishin kunai before leaping into the air and throwing them down to the ring. Schwartz raised an eyebrow before his eyes widened as Naruto appeared behind him and swung a kunai at his neck. Naruto grinned as Schwartz's coat fell to the ground as the masked ninja reappeared on the other side of the arena. The masked ninja whipped his hands forward, an iron net shooting out and wrapping around Naruto, who fell to the ground.

"Let's see you escape from that!" said Schwartz with a smirk visible behind his mask that vanished as Naruto turned into a log before bursting out of the ground.

"Odori Kitsune (Leaping Kitsune)!" yelled Naruto as his blade sent Schwartz into the air with Naruto following him and soaring above the older teen with a burst of wind chakra. "I'm not done yet, Enokorogusa Tsuchi (Fox Tail Hammer)!" yelled Naruto as he did a flip in midair and brought Nenshousaiga down had on Schwartz's stomach. The older fighter spun with the impact and his giant blades slashed at Naruto, sending the fox teen hurtling towards the boundary of the ring with a large cut on his jacket. Naruto vanished in a flash to reappear by one of his kunai, holding his chest on instinct from being wounded even as Schwartz struggled to breathe after his impact with the ground following Naruto's second strike.

"Both contestants are down!" yelled Mr. Announcer. "If neither is able to stand after a ten count the first to regain their feet wins! One… Two…" As he started counting, his eyes widened as Schwartz rolled to his chest and pushed himself to his hands and knees while Naruto used Nenshousaiga as a prop to help himself climb to his feet, both of them standing upright even as he reached 8.

"Sturm Und Drang," yelled Schwartz as he started to spin.

"Try and catch me!" yelled Naruto as he sheathed Nenshousaiga and started running from the spinning top of death Schwartz had become. "Come on, I've got shorter legs, you should be able to catch me!" taunted Naruto as he circled the arena with Schwartz pursuing him.

"Oh hell no," groaned Ranma as he saw what Naruto was up to. "I told them not to use any big flashy moves!"

"Is running away all you can do?" yelled Schwartz as the two ninja neared the center of the ring. He suddenly had a bad feeling as Naruto spun around with a smirk and unsheathed Nenshousaiga.

"Hiryū Shōten Ha Kirite (Flying Dragon Ascension Strike Cutter)!" yelled Naruto as he swung the blade upward, a tornado erupting from the blade and going in the opposite direction of Schwartz's spin, nullifying it and catching him up in the grip of Naruto's attack as it carried him into the air.

"That Baka, I'm going to pound him into the ground for that!" growled Ranma as he braced himself against the gusts Naruto had unleashed.

Schwartz's eyes were wide as numerous wind blades slammed into him as the tornado buffeted him around before finally dying down and dropping him back to the ground, where he found Nenshousaiga's blade at his throat. "Give up?" asked Naruto casually.

"I surrender, well done young man," said Schwartz. "But I must ask one thing, how did you generate the hot and cold ki for the attack? I was not putting out a battle aura of either and neither were you."

"I can generate wind and fire, it was pretty easy to set the pattern myself as we moved and unleash it from my blade," said Naruto with a smirk.

"Simply ingenious," said Schwartz with a sigh as he turned to look at Mr. Announcer. "I forfeit."

"Winner by forfeit, Uzumaki Naruto!" yelled the blond haired man as the crowd roared with approval at the awesome finish to the match.

Seeing the glare Ranma was shooting him, Naruto gulped and made sure to keep the arena between himself and the pig tailed man as he exited to give medics a chance to take care of Schwartz.

"The second semi final match is between Nura Shimoyo and Unuma Usui," said Mr. Referee. Shimoyo had spiky white hair and was dressed in a white ninja outfit with an ice blue coat and scarf while Usui wore a kimono with an eye emblem that repeated endlessly along the lining as well as a blindfold over his eyes. The pale haired boy carried a kodachi with an ice blue handle while Usui had a short spear with an iron sphere at the end opposite the spearhead and a tortoise shell shield he carried on his back. "Nura-san is a fourth generation practitioner in his family's Yakuza sword style while Unuma-san manages to fight even while masked and not take a single hit. Fighters ready? Begin!"

"You are very confident to leave your blindfold on, you never took it off once in all your matches or to watch any of the others," said Shimoyo as he drew his kodachi.

"I have no need of physical eyes, my Shingan (Eye of the Heart) perceives all," said Usui with a smirk. "I can see every part of your body."

Shimoyo shuddered and asked, "Dude, are you coming onto me? Because I definitely prefer the ladies."

"You impudent brat!" growled Usui as he took a step forward in preparation for a charge, only to have his opponent lunge forward and swing his blade. Usui swung up the iron ball on his spear and deflected the attack before unleashing a barrage of blows with both sides of his weapon as he fired off, "Bouken Bougyoku Hyakka Ryouran (Treasure Sword, Treasure Sphere, Hundred Flower, Silver Chaos)!" The rapid fire attack sent Shimoyo staggering backwards and it was only thanks to the charms that he didn't have serious wounds on his legs. "As you can see, my Shingan leaves no openings!"

"Ok, but what about this?" asked Shimoyo as he clapped his hands, causing frost to grow all over the iron sphere before it cracked and left Usui with only the spear head to attack. "My blade can freeze anything it touches," explained the pale haired teen with a smirk.

"Impressive for one so young," replied Usui through clenched teeth as he twisted the middle of the spear to drop the half with the remains of the iron sphere to the ground while bringing the tortoise shell shield off his back and into a guard position.

"Finally ready to get serious?" asked Shimoyo as he bounced lightly on his toes.

"Come and find out," Usui taunted with a sneer.

The blue haired boy shrugged and said, "If you insist," before he seemed to vanish. Usui spun around and raised his tortoise shield to block a blow aimed at his back and stabbed forward, scoring a mark on Shimoyo's leg. "Wow, you actually saw through my Meikyo Shisui (Soul Mirror, Deadly Water)," said the teen with wide eyes.

"Fool, with my hearing I can tell exactly where and how you'll move!" declared Usui before gasping and dropping the now ice encrusted shield to the ground where it shattered.

"Hear this! Nura-ke Isshisoden Furaingu Yokai Yakuza Kikku (Nura Clan Traditional Family Technique: Flying Yokai Yakuza Kick)!" yelled Shimoyo as he leapt into the air with a round house kick that smashed into Usui's ear to send the blindfolded fighter out of the ring.

"Winner, Nura Shimoyo!" yelled Mr. Referee to massive applause. "There will now be a short intermission before the final battle."

(0o0o0)

"That Nura kid will be tough to beat," muttered Naruto as he took the chance to empty up before the match.

"Same is true for you," said a voice to his left and Naruto looked over to see Shimoyo sheepishly grinning at him from the next urinal. "Sorry, I must have come in just behind you. I would have gone to another restroom, but I really needed to go!"

Naruto found himself chuckling, Shimoyo had a friendly air about him and despite their clashing elements Naruto felt the older boy was someone he could relate to. "Reminds me of a time I had to take a leak during a wilderness survival examination. One of the other competitors ambushed me and I literally got caught with my pants down. When you've got to go, you've got to go!"

Shimoyo chuckled as they finished their business and moved to wash their hands. "You're not an average person, that's for sure," he said.

"Neither are you," countered Naruto. "This close, I can smell crisp mountain air, human, and the kind of smell you get when your nose is trying to compensate for a lack of light in the dark."

"I'm an eighth Nurarihyon, three quarters human, and an eighth ice demon. And you're half kitsune and half human," replied the pale haired boy.

"Geee, what gave me away?" asked Naruto with a roll of his eyes as his tails waved behind him, causing Shimoyo to chuckle.

"Promise to give a good match?" asked the ice user as he extended a hand to Naruto, who grinned and shook it.

"It's a promise!" exclaimed Naruto before the two hurried towards the arena.

(0o0o0)

"Final match for King of Blades, Nura Shimoyo vs Uzumaki Naruto!" yelled Mr. Announcer. "Hajime!"

Both teens eyed one another for a second before blurring forward. A fierce wind was kicked up as Shimoyo's icy blade met with Nenshousaiga. The two clashed for a moment before the two boys skidded past one another and spun around, a bit of ice coating Nenshousaiga before it evaporated while Shimoyo's sword was steaming. "Awesome, what kind of sword is that?" asked Naruto.

"Tsuyujimo (Frozen Dew), made from the claw of a Yeti," replied Shimoyo. "Yours?"

"Fang of a Kitsune," said Naruto.

"Well, let's get this show on the road," said Shimoyo before the two leapt forward for a second clash that ended with Naruto loosing the contest and skidding back from the center of the ring.

"Kaen Giri!" yelled Naruto as he swung Nenshousaiga to send a wave of fox fire at Shimoyo, who leapt over the attack and flipped in midair to send his own vertical attack of shadow energy that Naruto rolled to the side to evade and into a crouch that let him spring at the descending Shimoyo with a cry of, "Odori Kitsune!" Shimoyo's blade blocked the attack, but Naruto's momentum was greater and the pale haired boy found himself knocked back up into the air and falling to the ground while Naruto landed on his feet.

Shimoyo climbed to his feet while shaking his head to clear it. "Remarkable agility, looks like I need to step up my game," he said before raising his eyes to meet Naruto. The kitsune hanyou suddenly felt immense youki pressing down on him as the arena seemed to grow darker.

"Genjutsu?" wondered Naruto before flaring his chakra. His eyes widened as Shimoyo vanished and Naruto barely managed to respond to his senses suddenly screaming at him to spin around and block an attack aimed at his back.

"Meikyo Shisui (Soul Mirror, Deadly Water)!" said Shimoyo as they once again locked blades. "I'm impressed you managed to throw off my fear and sense me in time to block my attack."

Naruto leapt back and rapidly formed some hand signs. "Kirigakure no Jutsu!" said Naruto as he breathed out a gust of thick mist that kept growing and filled the ring.

(0o0o0)

"Switch to thermal vision!" snapped Nabiki into a radio seconds before all the monitors in the stadium changed from showing the mist to showing two heat silhouettes.

(0o0o0)

"Wow, that's impressive," said Shimoyo before the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as Naruto's voice echoed through the mist.

"There are eight instant death targets on the human body: spinal cord, lungs, liver, clavicle artery, jugular vein, kidneys, brain and heart," said Naruto, his voice seeming to come from all around Shimoyo.

(0o0o0)

"Now he's imitating Zabuza," said Hinata, her Byakugan active and allowing her to see into the mist.

"Ugh, creepy," said Miyuki, her fur bristling as she hugged herself.

"Yes, we were in the same situation on our first mission out of the village and the man using the Kirigakure jutsu was a master of silent killing," said Hinata, memories of Zabuza looming out of the mist causing her to shiver.

(0o0o0)

"Such an impressive fear, and so strong!" gasped Shimoyo.

"Thanks, now go to sleep," said Naruto as he appeared in front of his opponent and brought Nenshousaiga down for a knockout blow, only to have his sword pass right through Shimoyo's head.

"Kyoka Suigetsu (Mirror Flower, Water Moon)," said Shimoyo as he reappeared behind Naruto, Tsuyujimo at the fox boy's throat.

'Fast!' Naruto gasped inside his head before bursting in a puff of smoke as the mist cleared, revealing several clones of Naruto scattered around the ring.

"I think it's time to bring out the big guns," said Shimoyo as he pulled a large sakazuki cup from within his robe. All the clones stared in surprise at the bit of sleight of hand as a jug of sake was pulled out and poured in before Shimoyo blew on the liquid while intoning, "Ougi Meikyo Shisui: Sakura (Secret Technique: Soul Mirror, Deadly Water - Cherry Blossoms)." Instantly, blue flames swept out from him and engulfed all the clones, who could only cry out in surprise as they vanished, leaving no trace of Naruto to be seen. "Hmmm, maybe I overdid it," muttered Shimoyo before a yellow flash marked Naruto's return to the match as he flash stepped in and drove a Rasengan into his opponent's gut, only for Shimoyo to once again become an afterimage and fade away while reappearing behind Naruto.

"That technique is annoying," said Naruto as he slowly backed to the edge of the ring with Shimoyo following.

"So are yours," replied the pale haired boy before the two started in a clash of blades that moved around the ring.

(0o0o0)

"Something doesn't feel right," said Hinata as she watched the two fighters clash and move around the ring.

Her friends frowned and opened up their senses, only for Cinnamon to gasp. "Holy, they're forming a spiral of coiling hot and cold energy following their blades!"

"But doesn't that mean Naruto can win with another Hiryū Shōten Ha Kirite?" asked Ryeka as she summoned her laptop to analyze the temperature pattern the two fighters were forming.

"No… the spiral works by leading your opponent and trapping their hot ki within your cold ki," said Akira, his eyes narrowed. "Their ki is coiling around one another constantly, neither one is trying to trap the other."

"Naruto and Shimoyo-san are also alternating the direction of their attacks," said Miyuki. "See? Naruto goes for a downward strike and Shimoyo blocks with an upward one that chains into a downward swing that Naruto's rising slash blocks over and over."

(0o0o0)

"Oh crap," said Ranma as his eyes finally caught the convoluted spiral that was forming as Naruto and Shimoyo reached the center of the ring.

Seeing her husband's worry, Akane hurried over to him. "What's wrong Ranma?"

"Naruto's using the spiral on instinct, he's not trying to control the energy that's building up," said Ranma.

(0o0o0)

As Naruto and Shimoyo brought their blades together for a final clash, both of them were caught by surprise as a pair of dragons, one red and the other blue, erupted from between their blades and spiraled up into the air with a tornado surrounding them that also obscured Naruto and Shimoyo from view as the winds whipped dust and water from the mist around.

(0o0o0)

Mr. Announcer gingerly lifted his head above the edge of the ring where he'd fallen flat and waited for the dust and debris kicked up by the wind to settle down. Upon seeing a figure lying face down on the ground, the man climbed into the ring and carefully made his way over to find Shimoyo half buried in the ground with his arms out as if a giant fist had pounded him flat. "Nura Shimoyo is unconscious, but where is Uzumaki Naruto?" he declared as the ring was clear but no sign of the fox boy was present. "In the event that Nura Shimoyo and Uzumaki Naruto do not make themselves known to be conscious, this match will end in a draw!" declared the man after a moment of inspecting the arena and not seeing Naruto.

(0o0o0)

"Hey, do you hear something?" asked Kimiko as her ears twitched.

"Yeah, sounds like screaming…" said Miyuki before she looked up and blinked.

(0o0o0)

"…!" yelled Naruto as he plummeted through the air towards the ring far below. The unexpected explosion of hot and cold energy had resulted in two things, a downward gale that slammed Shimoyo to the ground and an upward surge that carried Naruto into the air and then let him go. "Gotta… focus… chakra!" gasped the blond as the wind tore at his body.

(0o0o0)

Looking up as a sound reached his ears, Mr. Announcer's eyes widened behind his sunglasses as he spotted Naruto plummeting towards the ground at high speed. "Contestant Uzumaki is alive and in dire straits if he can't pull a trick out of his sleeve!" yelled the man.

(0o0o0)

"Come on… almost there!" growled Naruto as he struggled to bring his hands together against the wind.

(0o0o0)

"Kami-sama!" gasped Hinata as she saw Naruto gathering his chakra even as Ryeka was tensing to soar into the air and slow Naruto down before he hit the ground.

(0o0o0)

"Futon: Tobikumo (Flying Cloud)!" roared Naruto. Chakra swirled around his feet and rapidly formed a cloud beneath them. "Got… to… pull… UP!" roared Naruto as he put all his strength into guiding the technique as the ground was getting to close for comfort.

(0o0o0)

Mr. Announcer ducked as Naruto made a ninety degree turn from straight down to shooting right towards him. The fox boy barely managed to keep conscious as he banked the cloud into a rapid spiral around the perimeter of the arena to decrease his speed, his teeth clenched as he kept circling the arena to bled off his momentum before slowly spiraling down to a stop at the center of the ring before collapsing to his knees. "Oh man, my body hurts all over!" gasped Naruto.

Seeing that Shimoyo was still out cold, Mr. Announcer grabbed Naruto's arm and raised it up as he yelled, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Uzumaki Naruto, King of Blades!" before the crowd went wild. However, Naruto didn't hear much of it as his body finally decided it had gone through enough and shut down.

_**Well, there you have it. Sorry again for the delay and that you didn't get to see the queen of blades crowned, but this chapter is at 23 pages in Word, so I'm cutting it off here.**_

_**A few notes: Shimoyo is based on characters in Nuraihyon no Mago (Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan in America). George and Schwartz round out the cast of cameos from G Gundam, the rest of the opponents are from Rurouni Kenshin.**_


	13. Trial 12: Queen of Blades

Shimoyo slowly opened his eyes and winced as he felt his entire body aching. "Oh man, did someone get the number of the truck that hit me?" he asked. He could tell he was in a bed, but the room didn't seem to be a hospital.

"It wasn't a truck," said a voice, causing the pale haired boy to turn his head and see Naruto lying in a bed on the other side of the room. "It was our hot and cold energy unintentionally clashing and exploding. You got pounded into the ground, I got sent flying into the air." Naruto was wrapped up in enough bandages to resemble a mummy and Shimoyo found he had received similar treatment.

"Ok, but where are we?" asked the Nura boy.

"A spare room in the stadium for medical emergencies, Nabiki-san was meeting with your parents to discuss any possible legal hassle from your injuries and said we should rest in here. Hinata-chan and Ryeka-chan bandaged us up," explained Naruto.

At that moment, the door opened and three adults entered. The single male was tall with spiky brown hair that grew darker as it fell below his ears and wore a pair of glasses as well as a light yukata. One of the women with him also had long brown hair that hung to the middle of her back and wore a sundress. The last woman wore a kimono and scarf despite the heat and had long hair that was a mix of black, blue, and white. "Ah, I figured you'd be up soon," said the man as he ruffled Shimoyo's hair while the kimono clad woman produced a bag of ice from within her kimono sleeves and placed it on his forehead.

"Auntie Tsurara, stop it!" yelled the boy, only to get a bop on the head from the brown haired woman.

"Shimo-chan, don't be rude, you know that ever since she had to give you a blood infusion after you got stung by that flame scorpion Tsurara has been protective of you beyond being the future head of the family!" she exclaimed.

"So that's where the Ice Demon blood comes from?" asked Naruto, causing the three adults to jump slightly. Waving his tails to keep them from freaking out the fox boy grinned. "Have to say Shimoyo makes good use of the ice powers for not being born with them."

"Ah yes, my son's final opponent, Uzumaki Naruto," said the man. "I am Nura Rikuo, the brunette is my wife Kana, and this is Tsurara, a Yuki-Onna retainer of my family."

"Pleased to meet you," said Naruto, inclining his body in a slight bow.

"Forgive my rudeness, but do you happen to know Hagoromo Gitsune?" asked Rikuo.

Naruto had to think for a moment before his eyes widened. "That crazy nogitsune? My mom kicked her out of the kitsune clan as soon as she became the new Kyuubi! Last I heard, she had been cursed by Inari-kami-sama to rot in Hell."

"Ha! Serves that bitch right after what she did… wait, your mother is the current Kyuubi?" exclaimed Rikuo.

"Yeah, do you know Oka-san?" asked Naruto.

"Yeah, your mom is an old family friend since her father became head of the Kitsune clan when Hagoromo Gitsune was defeated in the Edo period. About 20 years ago I defeated Hagoromo Gitsune for good and your mom sent me a message saying the Nura clan and the Kitsune clan were now allies," said Rikuo.

"Awesome," said Naruto, only for the door to open again as Hinata entered the room and marched right up to him. "Hinata-chan, good to see you…" Naruto's voice trailed off as he noticed the glare in the girl's eyes. For once she looked like the 'proper heiress' the elders of her clan wanted. "I'm in deep trouble, aren't I?" asked Naruto as his ears flattened down to his head.

Hinata's glare didn't lessen and Naruto's tails drooped. "Naruto-kun, care to tell me why you didn't notice the gathering hot and cold ki mixing into a potentially dangerous condition?" she hissed out.

"Uhhhh…" Naruto's eyes darted around the room, particularly drawn to the window behind Hinata as if estimating if he could reach it before she used her Jyuuken to shut his body down. When she punched the wall next to her and left a foot deep indentation in it, he wisely stayed still. "I was so wrapped up in the heat of battle and wasn't even trying to do a spiral!" he exclaimed.

Hinata's glare lessened a little and she finally noticed the other people in the room. The fact Tsurara had a giant ice naginata out and was standing between Hinata and the Nura family clued her into the scene she was making. Turning and bowing to them, Hinata apologized. "Gomen, but when my idiot fiancé does something stupid that puts his life in danger I get a little intense," she said, which seemed to calm the Yuki-Onna down. A sudden gust of wind and the closing of the bathroom door had Hinata whipping around with Byakugan active to see Naruto had taken this chance to relieve his bladder. Hinata's face immediately went red as she saw Naruto's pants drop and she hurriedly deactivated her bloodline.

"Well, seems you have you boyfriend well trained," said Rikuo with a grin as he ruffled his son's hair. "Just think Shimoyo, someday that might be you!"

"Shut it dad!" yelled the boy as he jerked his head away.

"Anyway, since you both seem to be ready to get out of bed, I'd like to take this chance to invite your group to join us for dinner, it's fairly casual but dress to impress," said Rikuo as he scribbled something on a scrap of paper and handed it to Hinata. "Just give my cell phone a call when you've talked with your friends," he said with a smile before pulling Shimoyo to his feet and out of the room with Kana and Tsurara following and giggling at Shimoyo's protests that he could walk on his own.

(0o0o0)

"So a youkai yakuza invited us to dinner?" muttered Ryeka an hour later once Naruto and Hinata had returned to the group's penthouse suite. "I'm not so sure this is a good idea…"

"If he has a human wife he can't be all bad," suggested Kimiko.

"And he knows Naruto's mom," Akira added.

"Maybe, but he said he was the head of the Nura clan, right?" asked Hiryuu. When Naruto and Hinata nodded, the monk Taijiya frowned and tapped his staff on the floor. "I have heard of a powerful wandering youkai in my time named Nurarihyon who leads a Hyakki Yakō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) based in a village called Ukiyoe, but mostly they prey on bandits and play pranks on the villagers."

"Oka-san might have mentioned him once or twice, but I don't think they're as friendly as Oka-san is with some of the humans she's known in our village for a shorter time," said Naruto after searching his memory.

"I didn't get a bad feeling from him," said Hinata.

Naruto sighed and rubbed his head. "That's kind of the problem Hinata-chan, he might be totally honest but if this guy is the leader of a youkai clan some of his subordinates could make things nasty if some hanyou and people with spiritual powers come into their territory. The last thing we want is to start a gang war…"

"Still, this is an invitation to dinner, not his home turf," said Ryeka. "I think we should go."

"I agree," said Akira.

After a few more minutes of discussion, the group reached a consensus and Hinata called the number they'd been given, informing Kana that they would see them in two hours outside their hotel.

(0o0o0)

"I hate dressing to impress," said Naruto as he stared at himself in the mirror. He had chosen to wear a black ninja gi and pants that would fit well on both himself and Naruko if he got splashed at some point since the waterproof soap had been removed in all the fighting he'd done and there was only one bar left for the battle of Fists and Blades. The outfit also allowed him to carry quite a few shuriken and kunai in hidden pockets with Nenshousaiga stashed in his weapons space inside a sleeve. "It usually means having to smile even as you're forced to talk to a vapid airhead princess instead of your girlfriend and watch her stuck with macho pretty boys who've never broken a sweat except for sparring practice."

"Come on, just imagine what Hinata will be wearing and you'll get to see her in it all evening," said Akira as he finished fastening the last toggle of a mandarin dress suit over a pair of silk kung fu pants.

"A little help here?" begged Hiryuu as he stumbled out of the boys' restroom with his hands wrapped up in a tie. While the youth had mastered much about living in modern Japan from his constant visits, he was obviously more used to wearing a kimono instead of the white dress shirt and slacks Kimiko had picked out for him. "It's not funny!" he hissed as Naruto and Akira chuckled at him.

"Here, just hold still," said Thyme. He was dressed in a modern cut of traditional Han clothing and looked like he had stepped right out of a historical drama. The dragon prince easily untangled the tie and promptly tossed it aside before pulling a clip on tie from his personal storage space pocket. "I always carry a few of these in case a formal occasion is sprung on me," he explained as he made sure it was positioned perfectly on Hiryuu.

"Clever… now how much longer do you think we need to give the girls?" asked Naruto.

"No idea, but dad has always said to never rush a lady getting ready for an outing," said Akira with a shrug.

(0o0o0)

Naruto's ears and nose twitched ten minutes later as the four boys sat around playing Halo 3 on the common room's giant plasma screen television. Turning his head towards the door leading to the girls' half of the rooms, his jaw dropped with an audible thud over the sounds of gunfire and explosions that had the other boys turning to look at what had his attention. Hinata stood in the doorway, a blush on her cheeks as she felt Naruto's eyes move up and down her outfit. It was a form fitting red sheath dress with a black shawl wrapped around each of her wrists and behind her back and neckline that showed off her chest quite nicely for her boyfriend.

"Cinnamon picked out that outfit, I just know it," said Thyme. "Naruto, you're going to have to beat the other guys off with live steel." Naruto's reply was a slight bit of drool slipping out the corner of his mouth.

"I think he likes it," said Cinnamon as she gently pushed Hinata out of the way and let the boys see the tight black Cheongsam she was wearing with a phoenix and dragon in gold thread flying through silver clouds.

"Sister, an excellent choice," said Thyme before his eyes widened at the sight of Ranko in a pair of women's slacks and a white blouse under a black vest. Ranko's face gained a slight blush as she felt Thyme's eyes on her, even though she was a tomboy she still liked feeling pretty, and the fact Thyme was staring at her in this outfit made her happy. "My dear, you look positively dangerous!" said Thyme as he raised her hand to his lips for a kiss.

"Careful auntie, Thyme has just as much skill at charming people as Cinnamon-chan," exclaimed Miyuki, whose dark blue cheongsam featured a roaring tiger.

Naruto finally seemed to come out of his stupor and walked up to Hinata. "Hime, your beauty exceeds that of the sun," he said before dropping to one knee and kissing her hand. Hinata's blush spread from her cheeks to her entire face even as she smiled at the compliment.

"Dang, who knew Naruto could be so smooth?" asked Kimiko as she stepped out wearing a strapless blue dress with a small slit up the left side to show a bit of her legs, which were clad in dark blue boots with heels. A set of blue gloves that came to above her elbows gave her a Jessica Rabbit appearance while a black cloak with a moon clasp that had been a gift from her uncle on her last birthday acted both as a necklace and as protection from chilly night air. Behind her, Ryeka was dressed in an outfit that it took a moment to register as the one Princess Leia had worn at the end of the first Star Wars Movie.

The last to appear was Toshi, who was dressed in a slinky black silk dress and high heeled boots that came up to her knees plus a black fur coat. A binding seal disguised as a ruby in a pearl collar around her neck would prevent any local miko from sensing the succubus and trying to purify her and added a bit of class. Ranko had amusingly called it the most conservative thing she'd seen Toshi wear after her school uniform. The succubus immediately moved over to Cinnamon and snuggled to her side.

"Well, if this isn't dressed to impress, I don't know what is," said Ryeka with a grin.

"Are you sure you should be wearing a pure white dress around two Jusenkyo victims?" asked Akira with a slight blush on his face.

"Are you saying you want me to give you a wet T-shirt type view?" asked the cyan haired girl with a smirk Ryoko had used on Tenchi many times. It got the same reaction from Akira, his eyes bulging as his jaw flapped. "Relax, this is a special fabric Grandma invented, it doesn't go transparent. I learned to take precautions once that water main burst to hit Naruto and soaked all of us at school."

"Well, we'd better get down there," said Hinata, a blush still on her face as Naruto took her arm and led her to the door.

(0o0o0)

"Hey Naruto, glad you guys decided to come," said Shimoyo with a grin as he leaned against a large planter outside the hotel. He had abandoned his fighting clothes except for his scarf and jacket and now wore a dress shirt and slacks. "And thank you ladies for giving me the chance to see such visions of loveliness."

"Don't get any ideas!" growled Naruto as he pulled Hinata to him before dipping her down for a kiss. When he stood her back on her feet, Hinata's face put her previous blush to shame and Naruto grinned as he practically felt heat radiating from her.

"Yeah, yeah, I figured she was your girlfriend by how she acted in the hospital," said Shimoyo while raising his hands in a calming gesture before turning to Thyme. "I'm quite sorry we never got to fight, I would have liked to see how we matched up."

"Life is full of missed opportunities, but if you want to have a match after the tournament…" said Thyme with a grin that Shimoyo echoed before leading the group to a waiting van. Opening the door, the pale haired boy bowed to indicate his guests should enter first.

"Ah, I see our guests have arrived Shimoyo-sama," said the driver, a blond haired man with a scarf around his neck.

"Hai, please take us to the restaurant Kubinashi-san," said the boy as he climbed in and closed the door behind him while sitting next to Miyuki.

The driver simply nodded and started the van after checking to see that everyone had their seat belts on. Twenty minutes later, the van pulled up to a restaurant that featured a cute cartoon cat lying under a konatsu. "I'll be in to join you once I find a parking spot," said Kubinashi as the teens climbed out, the boys chivalrously helping the girls down.

"Welcome to the Warm Kitten eatery," said Shimoyo with a gesture to the restaurant. "It's run by the Bakeneko clans, a Nura clan associate. The Bakeneko have long been supporters of my father even before he took control of the Nura clan."

A rumble from Naruto's stomach caused everyone to stare at him for a moment as he rubbed the back of his head. "What? I had several tough fights today and burned a lot of energy!" exclaimed the blond.

"Then we'd better get inside and start eating," said Shimoyo with a grin as he led the group forward, where a woman with cat ears and a tail dressed in a kimono stood by the door.

"Greetings and welcome to the Warm Kitten restaurant," she said with a bow before opening one of the doors into the eatery. As the group passed her, it became clear to Naruto, Kimiko, and Miyuki that she was a nekomata and from the scent drifting out of the door the place was packed with them. They quickly saw that they were right as all the waitresses appeared to be nekomata and were moving through the crowded dining area with catlike grace to deliver dishes to customers.

"Ah, young master you're finally here," said a voice as a black haired man in a suit closed a book and stood up from a seat in the waiting area. "Your parents and Tsurara-san are in the private dining room."

"Thanks Kurotabo," said the boy with a grin as they made their way to the private dining room, though Miyuki did draw a few looks from the waitresses they passed. Naruto's eyes narrowed as he noticed several powerful seals that acted to repel human attention from the door unless directed to it. His tails darted out and tapped Hinata, Akira, and Hiryuu, tagging them with a bit of youkai that would last the evening and prevent them from falling for any more seals like those.

"Impressive seal work, I wasn't aware that homeland youkai had any knowledge of the Shinobi arts," said Naruto.

Shimoyo blinked and started at Naruto before following his gaze to the seals. "That's what those are? They've been there as long as I can remember," said the white haired boy.

The door opened to reveal Rikuo with a grin on his face. "Good eye kid. Since youkai live so much longer than humans we've managed to preserve quite a few things from the past, but sadly much has been lost during fights between different youkai groups."

"Rikuo, stop talking shop and let them in," said Kana from behind him, now wearing a simple kimono. Rikuo stepped aside and gestured for the teens to enter the room, which turned out to be just as large as the dining room they were leaving and was filled with various youkai in their normal forms. Some were clearly families eating dinner together, but several looked like the typical group of salary men out drinking before going home. Almost instantly, all talking ceased as Hinata, Kimiko, and Hiryuu stepped across the threshold and their spiritual powers were felt by every youkai in the room.

As several hostile gazes were focused on the trio, Naruto slipped in front of them with Nenshousaiga sliding out of his sleeve and into his grasp. Inching the blade out of the scabbard a bit, the kitsune hanyou let his killing intent loose, blanketing the room in an oppressive feeling that caused the youkai to freeze. "Anyone got a problem with my friends?" he asked.

"And my guests?" asked Rikuo, adding his own killing intent to the mix so the room started to darken. At that point, a little spider girl started to cry and Naruto found himself being knocked to the ground by a chop to the head from Hinata while Kana brought an ice mallet provided by Tsurara down on her husband.

"STOP SCARING EVERYONE!" the two enraged females yelled while their respective men knelt on the ground with large bumps on their heads.

(0o0o0)

"You two are so whipped," said Cinnamon with a grin a short time later once the group had been settled in a corner of the youkai dining area. Hinata and Kana had forced Naruto and Rikuo to apologize to everyone in the room and then informed them they would not be able to order their favorite dishes that night.

"I am impressed at Rikuo-san's control of his youki," said Hiryuu. "It actually appeared the room grew darker for a minute there."

"That's because you were caught up in dad's fear," said Shimoyo.

Kimiko's eyes narrowed slightly. "You mentioned Fear earlier during your fight with Naruto, what do you mean by that?"

Tsurasa smiled as she sipped her iced tea and started to explain. "When we focus on presence on a human, we cause them to acknowledge the fear of the unknown since most of us are creatures of legend or monsters. As the Supreme Commander of all Youkai Rikuo-sama can cause darkness to gather around him as he summons a Hyakki Yakō to follow behind him. The success of our techniques is determined by how much fear we cultivate in our opponents. Just now, Naruto-san and Rikuo-sama could have slaughtered everyone in the room if they wanted to."

"I said I was sorry, it's instinct to protect one's mate!" growled Naruto, his tails thrashing behind him as he tightened his grip on his chopsticks and a bowl of rice. Hinata deftly removed the items from his grip so he wouldn't send shards of pottery, rice, and wood flying.

"Yes Naruto-kun, but you did overreact in the equivalent of terrorizing a bunch of civilians back home," she said.

"That's something else I want to talk about," said Rikuo. "I mentioned you to my Grandfather and he said to ask you how Kyuubi-sama and the other Bijuu are doing."

"Well, that kind of falls into why I'm here in Tokyo," said Naruto before starting to explain about Akatsuki, the various Bijuu, and the reasoning behind his training trip.

Rikuo nodded once Naruto was done, his arms in his sleeves and he contemplated the information. "Well, it makes sense, when I had to fight Hagorome Gitsune I was forced to go to Tono Village by my grandpa to train and master my fear. I can understand you might be feeling frustrated at having to hide so much, but keep in mind that if you don't train hard you'll never grow strong enough to protect your village and family. But don't be afraid to ask for help while you're here… or when you get home. Just as the Bijuu are the rulers of all youkai, I command the lesser youkai that remained here in Japan when your homeland was first raised and settled. If need be, I can rally all the clans of Japan and sweep across the sea to answer a call from the majority of the Council of Nine."

"Woah, that's impressive, a nationwide army of youkai…" said Kimiko.

Any further talk was cut off as the door to the dining area slammed open as one of the catgirl waitresses flew through it and crashed into a table. "You call this swill food?" yelled a loud voice before the door was filled by the body of a large man in biker leathers and shoulder pads with spikes on them stomped in. Muscles that bulged beneath the leather and an impressive display of scars on his arms and a few on his face showed that this man was a fighter, but the group of men crowding into the room behind him shoed that he was apparently the leader of a biker gang given their similar outfits and rugged appearances. As the men kept filing in, the various youkai quickly stood and moved back, clearly not looking for a fight.

"Is there a problem?" asked Rikuo as he climbed to his feet.

"Yeah, this place serves crap food!" growled the leader of the gang. "I found a dead fly in my ramen!"

"Oh please," said Ryeka with a groan. "That scam has been old since the time humans lived in caves!"

"Shut it girlie!" roared the man, an aura of an enraged bear forming over him as he yelled. "Lowly humans shouldn't speak in the presence of their superiors!"

"Gah, is this what your entire clan was like before you took over Rikuo?" asked Kana with a wince.

"I said SHUT IT!" roared the man once again as his body expanded into the form of a giant bear before he brought his fist down on a nearby table, shattering it and sending dishes flying everywhere. Customers ducked as food reached impressive distances, some crying out in pain as hot soup splashed them or fresh out of the oven dishes touched bare skin. "The next human that speaks up is my new meal!"

"Hinata-chan?" asked Naruto as he glanced at his fiancée, who was delicately removing a stray noodle from her hair.

"Go ahead Naruto-kun," said Hinata and the blond grinned.

"THAT'S IT!" yelled the bear as he charged at Hinata with his massive paw coming down for a swipe that would rip her apart. However, his blow was stopped as Naruto calmly stepped forward and grabbed the clawed paw that was twice the size of his head in mid air with his left hand, not budging an inch despite the strength behind the blow. Naruto's right hand delivered a straight punch that sent the biker bear flying across the room and into the wall.

"Nobody threatens my Hinata-hime and gets away with it!" growled Naruto as he hopped over the table and placed himself between the bear and the rest of his group. "Get out of here or I won't be so nice next time!"

"Guaaaah… You've got some strength kid, but we've got numbers on our side!" roared the bear as all his gang started turning into bear, boar, rhino, gorilla, and bull youkai with a few oni intermixed among them. By now, the youkai diners and staff had rapidly made their way out of the dining area via an emergency exit, leaving only the Nura family and Naruto's group against the biker gang. "Get 'em boys! We'll tear this place apart and roast the humans, though we'll play with the girls first!" His minions roared in approval and charged into the room, some pulling lengths of chain, knives, or lead pipes from within their clothes.

"Big mistake," said Rikuo before the the room seemed to grow dark from the release of his youki. As the charging youkai felt his power hit them, they flinched and suddenly found themselves under assault as their targets exploded into action.

As Hiryuu moved to shield Kana with Tsurasa, the later creating a shield of ice to help block any stray attacks, Kimiko had already drawn Imiheijin (Purification Sword Blade) from a hidden sheath in the small of her back and rolled backwards away from the table to slash at a rhino youkai bearing a sledgehammer as it swung down where her head had been. The glowing pink kodachi easily sliced through the shaft of the construction implement and took off the tip of the rhino's horn before the inu miko swept her surprised opponent's feet out from under him and delivered a two fisted overhand blow to his head that had him seeing stars as he hit the ground. The Inu girl made sure he would stay down by raking her claws along the back of his legs, making him bellow in pain.

Ryeka meanwhile had taken to the air, grabbing Akira's hand as she did so and spinning in mid air before hurling him at a bull youkai. The Saotome boy curled up into a ball and spun to gain momentum before slamming his feet into the bull's prominent nose. Using the youkai's horns as hand holds, Akira flipped onto the bull's back and proceeded to hammer his head with the Chestnut Fist. The bull staggered under the barrage and then tossed his head back, hitting Akira in the nose and causing him to lose his grip. As the biker reached back to grab the human boy, a shadow overhead had him look up just in time to see a boken crash into his face as Ryeka came down at high speeds that sent him staggering backwards and towards the ground. Even as the wooden blade broke on the youkai's thick skull, the Masaki girl had pulled a second one from within her sleeves as Akira grabbed the bull's horns before tossing him over the pig tailed youth's head into a group of bikers with a grunt. The two went back to back as Akira assumed a guard stance.

Miyuki had opted to flip onto the wall above where Rikuo had been sitting before launching herself claws first at a gorilla with a roar of a tiger bursting from her mouth before she started clawing at him. As the giant ape tried to swing a fist at the cat girl, he felt a foot slam into his head as Shimoyo flickered into the air beside him with a roundhouse kick. As the gorilla's head jerked to the side from the blow, he found his vision filled by a ball of glowing blue ki before Miyuki released a Mōko Takabisha in his face. The giant ape roared and brought his hands to his head before his roar of pain was cut off as Shimoyo swung Tsuyujimo (Frozen Dew) at his unguarded chest, hitting and encasing the bigger youkai in ice.

Thyme and Ranko both pulled their weapons and were guarding one another's backs as they easily fended off the attacks of the biker youkai while Cinnamon sent magic attacks out with Toshi protecting her. Kubinashi and Kurotabo had changed from their human forms to their youkai forms, a nukekubi and black clad monk, lashing out with and endless supply of threads and weapons respectively that tied up and decimated the bikers.

Hinata easily hopped over the table and landed behind Naruto, even as a boar swung a chain at them. Both shinobi hopped over the metal links and as they landed linked hands as the boar swung his weapon again. Naruto and Hinata twisted aside, with Naruto pulling Hinata close to him. Each attack was dodged with grace and skill, making it look like the couple was dancing before ending with a double kick from the two that sent the youkai sailing into the wall by his leader, who was staring as his gang was decimated.

"How is this possible?" demanded the bear before freezing as Rikuo appeared before him.

"You're messing around in Nura clan turf," said the quarter youkai as his jacket flared up behind him, revealing the kanji for fear.

"Nura clan?" yelled the bear as his eyes widened. "You're…"

"The Supreme Commander of all Youkai, Nura Rikuo!" said Rikuo before he vanished and reappeared behind the biker, whose clothes all exploded in confetti aside from his skull and crossbones boxers. "Now get the hell out of my territory before I take off your head!"

The gang leader let out a scream that would do horror movie heroines proud before scrambling to his feet and running out the door, the few members of his gang still conscious following him as the rest lay around the room unconscious.

(0o0o0)

"Well, that's the last of the trash," said Naruto as his clones tossed a final unconscious bull youkai out the front door of the establishment.

"And good riddance, I can't believe youkai are pulling that old trick," said Rikuo with a groan as he surveyed the nekomata waitresses helping guests back to their tables and getting them fresh entrées on the house.

Hinata sighed and leaned against Naruto, who wrapped an arm around her to pull her close. "At least we got to eat a bit before the trouble started," she said.

"You kids are pretty good, reminds me of my younger days when it seemed every week some new group of youkai were coming to challenge the Nura clan," said Rikuo with a grin. "Tell you what… after the tournament we were going to stay around and sightsee here in Nerima, how about I show you a few tricks?"

"That'd be awesome Rikuo-san!" exclaimed Naruto with a grin.

"Boys," said Hinata with a sigh, though she smiled as Naruto's arms never stopped embracing her no matter how animatedly he talked with the Nura clan head.

(0o0o0)

"You ready for this?" Cinnamon asked Ryeka and Ranko as the three of them made their way towards the contestant entrance to the arena.

"You bet!" said Ranko, her ki focus sword humming in agreement in its sheath.

"Do Jawas steal droids?" asked Ryeka, only to get blank looks from her two friends. "Geez, you guys need to get some more exposure to Star Wars."

"Hey, we leave Star Wars and Science Fiction to you and Lord of the Rings and fantasy to Kimiko," said Cinnamon.

"Last thing we need is another one of your epic debates on if Star Wars character one would beat Lord of the Rings character two," said Ranko, easily remembering the debate over Darth Vader vs Witch King of Angmar that had left the rest of the group swiveling their heads like they were watching a table tennis match and sent the nerds listening in on the debate into awe induced comas.

(0o0o0)

"Oh man, see the size of that giant scythe?" asked Ranko as she pointed to a girl in a green kimono carrying a giant scythe whose blade looked like it was from a zanbato instead of a common farm implement. The girl's long sleeves were held up by a thick white rope to keep them out of the way and the back of the scythe featured a counter weight on a chain.

"It's got to weigh at least thirty kilograms but she's carrying it like it's nothing," said Ryeka.

"That's not the one who scares me," said Cinnamon as she pointed to a red headed girl dressed in a suit of gleaming plate mail with a red dragon tabard over the cuirass and carrying a halberd and shield. "I can tell she's not a normal human all the way from over here, but I'm not sure what she is exactly."

"What about those two?" asked Ranko as she pointed to a pair of girls who looked to be sisters, one blue haired and the other a red head, dressed in identical outfits of black leather pants and jackets aside from their shirts, each girl wearing a shirt the same color as her hair that left a bit of her stomach exposed. The two were each leaning on a large club with spikes coming out and surveying the girls around them with contempt.

"More muscle bound than anything," said Ryeka after a moments' appraisal. "But that armored girl is using a halberd… she might be planning to hold her opponents off and let them wear themselves out against her shield and armor while she probes their defenses or knock them to the ground and use the weight of her armor to keep them pinned."

"Check out the size of that sword," said Cinnamon as she pointed at a brown haired girl leaning against the arena wall and propping her large sword up against it. Since the sword was about six feet long and a foot wide, several people were eyeing her slim fame to figure out if she could really use the giant sword.

Any further speculation over future opponents was cut off by Nabiki calling the girls forward. Compared to the large number of boys competing for the title of King of Blades, there were just thirty two girls competing, meaning sixteen matches.

"And please try to avoid destroying the arena, the martial arts contractors have been complaining about doing the same job three days in a row and I don't want to have it be a fourth time," finished Nabiki with a glare at Ranko and Cinnamon, the two she figured would cause the most damage by being directly related to Ranma and willing to fire massive area of effect spells without thinking of the consequences respectively.

Ryeka chuckled at the indignant looks the red head and the phoenix princess were wearing as they made their way to a bench where they could sit and wait for their names to come up. "I really hope we get skilled opponents," said the cyan haired girl.

"Hopefully not her," said Cinnamon as she nodded at the red haired girl in armor who was currently using her halberd to fling a tonfa wielding girl out of the ring, earning a whistle from all three friends at the show of strength and control.

"Well, looks like I'm up," said Ryeka as her name appeared on the board. Her opponent turned out to be the brown haired girl with the giant sword, Aerith Strife.

Both girls sized one another up, even as Mr. Referee declared the match had begun. Aerith was dressed in a white T shirt under a red suspender attached to a red miniskirt with black armored gloves on her arms and red boots while Ryeka was dressed in a leather jacket that covered most of her upper body and just left her midriff bare before a tight pair of leather pants went down into a pair of knee high combat boots (Talia al Ghul's outfit from Batman Arkham City) and carried her boken in her hand. Suddenly, Aerith tossed her sword into the air and as Ryeka's eyes tracked it, the brown haired girl rushed forward with a cry of "Beat Rush!" and delivered a series of rapid blows to Ryeka's body before the cyan haired girl's boken lashed out at her after Ryeka regained her stance. Aerith flipped over the low slash, her foot snapping out and slamming into Ryeka's chin before the brown haired girl flipped back to her starting position just in time to catch her sword as it came down with both her hands and swung it down with a cry of "Blade Beam!" The sword shot a crescent of blue energy at Ryeka as she crashed to the ground from the force of the kick.

An explosion enveloped Ryeka for a moment before she shot out of the resulting dust cloud with her boken over her shoulder. "Edakari (Tree Pruning): Roots!" cried Ryeka as she dashed forward, keeping her body low and slashing at Aerith's legs, only for the brown haired girl to leap back and avoid the attack. "Dang, thought I might have you after doing two techniques in such rapid succession you should be at least a little drained," said Ryeka as she spun to regain her stance and stop at the same time.

"Not even close!" said Aerith with a smile before the two girls lunged forward and their blades locked in the middle of the arena. "But to block my buster sword with a simple boken, that's impressive!"

"Then you haven't seen anything yet," exclaimed Ryeka as she twisted around and used Aerith's stored up momentum to send the brown haired girl stumbling across the ring. Ryeka lunged in, trying to score a power hit with a charge as Aerith was off balance, but the brown haired girl turned her tumble into a spinning slash that drove Ryeka back.

"Braver!" yelled Aerith as she delivered an upward slash at Ryeka and chained it into a downward slash that slammed the cyan haired girl into the ground. "Whew, you almost had me, but there's no way you can… stand…after… that…" Aerith's voice slowly trailed off as Ryeka climbed to her feet and shook herself to clear her head.

"Damn, you've really got some serious power in your arms," said Ryeka.

"What are you?" asked Aerith.

"Oh, are you scared of little old me?" asked Ryeka with a grin that bordered on psychotic.

"Finishing Touch!" yelled Aerith as she swung her sword and created a tornado that engulfed Ryeka. As the tornado died down, the brown haired girl stabbed her sword into the floor of the ring before she charged forward and grabbed Ryeka in a suplex and slamming her into the ground with a cry of, "MeteoDrive!" Not giving Ryeka a chance to recover, Aerith grabbed her and spun around before leaping into the air and tossing the cyan haired girl to the ground with a cry of "Meteor Strike!" Landing and staring into the dust cloud Ryeka's final impact had kicked up, Aerith's eyes widened as Ryeka strode out of the smoke, the only sign that she had been injured a bloody lip and nose.

"Very impressive, not many people could cause this much damage to me," said Ryeka conversationally as she wiped the blood away.

"Omnislash!" yelled Aerith and she darted forward, pulling her sword from the ground and delivering a rapid series of fifteen slashes to Ryeka before flipping into the air above the staggering Cyan haired girl and plummeting down fist first with a cry of "Final Heaven!" as her fist smashed into Ryeka's head and released a column of energy up into the air.

Everyone stared at the sight of Ryeka with her head imbedded in the ground in the middle of a large crater as Aerith panted while crouching over her. "Ryeka is down!" yelled Mr. Referee before he started counting, "Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven…" only to trail off as Ryeka suddenly jerked her head out of the hole she had made in the arena floor and slammed the back of her head into Aerith's face to send the brown haired girl staggering away.

"Now those were some awesome moves," said Ryeka with a grin before she used a mini teleport to mimic a body flicker and reappeared with her fist in Aerith's gut. "But it's my win!" exclaimed Ryeka as her punch sent Aerith sailing out of the ring.

"Winner by ring out, Ryeka!" yelled Mr. Referee, though like most of the audience he was staring at Ryeka and trying to figure out how she took so much damage and didn't collapse from pain.

"Well, hopefully my next fight will have me breaking a sweat," said Ryeka as she picked up her boken and strolled out of the ring. Only Hinata, with her Byakugan could tell that the girl had used her ki to improve her defenses with each blow and played a mental game against Aerith to make her nervous and loose her cool.

(0o0o0)

"We're on the first round and already the ring is damaged…" said Nabiki as she looked at the huge crater Aerith's final attack had caused. "I guess I'll have to accept that Ranma's students will always leave massive property damage behind them no matter what, even if they didn't directly cause it."

Mejiro was looking over some of the data from the match and frowned. "By all rights, Ms. Strife should have won," said the silver haired woman. "The power in her last two attacks was off the charts."

"Having all that power doesn't mean anything if your opponent can soak up or avoid your attacks," said Ranma. "My buddy Ryoga is really strong physically, but he doesn't have the speed to keep up with my movements for long. And Mousse here has the speed, but lacks the power to do much damage one on one."

"Just because neither of us went through your father's insane training," countered Mousse. "And I seem to recall you usually lost to us the first time we pulled a new trick out."

"And I always came back with a new move that trumped yours!" retorted Ranma. Before the two martial artists could break out into a physical fight, they each found a glass of cold water poured over their heads by Akane, turning Ranma into his female form and Mousse into a duck.

"I think the two of you need to cool down," said Akane as she glared at them. "What kind of example are you setting by getting ready to fight like that when you're the judges of the tournament?" Ranma-chan and Mousse both blushed, which was quite a feat for Mousse since he had feathers covering his entire body. Considering Akane's past history of going into a rage at the smallest of insults, Mousse and Ranma did feel a bit silly.

(0o0o0)

"I can't believe how tough you are, those last few techniques were brutal," said Cinnamon as she stared at Ryeka. "The only person I've seen with endurance like that is Lime, Mama Herb's bodyguard."

"Considering my Masu heritage, Grandma Washu's true power, and the strength of the Jurai royal family, I've inherited lots of stamina and endurance," said Ryeka with a grin.

"You and Naruto are both stamina freaks," muttered Ranko. Inside, she was nervous about facing the Jurai girl, knowing that Ryeka had held back most of her special abilities for later.

"Awww, don't gut sullen Ranko-chan!" chirped Cinnamon as she hugged Ranko from behind, only to get a light elbow jab in the stomach as her hands started to wander. "Owie! Why so mean?" sniffed the phoenix princess.

"I swear, you sometimes make Happosai look like a saint!" hissed Ranko.

"You wouldn't be saying that if it was my brother hugging you!" retorted Cinnamon. "I've seen him go googly eyed when I mention you and you're not around!"

"OOOHHH, bulls eye!" exclaimed Ryeka with a grin as Ranko's face turned bright red.

Before the red head could exact revenge on the flame haired girl, Cinnamon grinned. "Looks like I'm up!" and skipped away from the two sword users while twirling her staff, which appeared to be made of white oak with a large ruby at the end. Her opponent was the girl with the giant scythe they'd noticed earlier and Cinnamon's eyes searched for any possible weakness in the kimono wearing teen's form.

"Cinnamon vs Honjo Kamatari, Hajime!"yelled Mr. Announcer.

"You're going to use that fancy little stick against my scythe?" asked Kamatari. "It looks more like it belongs in a museum than in a fight."

"Just try to break it," said Cinnamon with a smirk as she assumed a bōjutsu stance with the ruby on the staff pointed at Kamatari.

"Gladly!" yelled the scythe user as she charged in and swung the giant scythe blade in a surprisingly fast attack aimed at the middle of the staff. Her eyes widened as Cinnamon shifted the staff just a bit and deflected the blow without a scratch appearing on the white wood. "What the heck is that staff made of?" demanded Kamatari.

"Dragon bone!" exclaimed Cinnamon as she jabbed her staff at Kamatari, only to have the scythe user give a twist of her wrist to bring the iron sphere that served as a counter weight to her scythe's blade up to block the blow and deflect the staff away, allowing Kamatari to leap back out of Cinnamon's range.

"So it's stronger than it looks, big deal!" growled Kamatari as she started to spin her scythe above her head. "You'll never get past this defense! Midare Benten, a move both offensive and defensive all at once that shatters everything in its path!" Kamatari's words rang true as the spinning iron orb and chain formed a whirling shield of metal around her that tore up the floor of the ring as she moved towards Cinnamon.

"Impressive," said Cinnamon before the ruby on her staff started glowing. "But I've got more tricks up my sleeve too!" A red energy blade formed around the ruby into a large spear blade the flame haired girl used to deliver an upward slash that sliced clean through the shaft of Kamatari's scythe and caused the blade to tumble to the ground. "And that's just one of them!"

"A very good trick, but I have my own contingency for a broken weapon," said Kamatari as she twirled the remaining length of her scythe's handle up so the small prongs at the bottom were now pointing into the air before jabbing them into several of the chain links connecting the scythe blade to the iron counter weight and yelling, "Honjo ryu chain twirl: Benten Mawashi!" as she started twirling the pole in her grasp. Cinnamon's eyes widened as Kamatari leapt into the air, the spinning blade, chain, and iron orb forming a helicopter blade like shield in front of the scythe user that she sent flying at Cinnamon like a razor sharp Frisbee that Cinnamon barely slid to the ground on her back to avoid.

Even as Kamatari's eyes widened at the unexpected dodge, Cinnamon was already leaping up with a burst of ki from her back giving her a quick boost so she was on her feet and in Kamatari's guard with her staff forming a large orb around the ruby that acted as a giant fist and sent Kamatari flying out of the ring. "Winner by ring out, Cinnamon!" yelled Mr. Announcer as Kamatari hit the ground and skidded to a stop.

"Oh yeah, I rock!" said Cinnamon as she twirled her staff before planting it on the ground and struck a pose against it that had many of the watching boys feeling hot under the collar as she gave a kiss to the crowd.

(0o0o0)

"Well, at least Cinnamon didn't destroy more of the ring," said Nabiki with a sigh before her office kunoichi Yumi handed her a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water. "Thanks Yumi, tell the contractors we'll need their services again and I'll pay extra for any other repairs since they're doing so much in such a short time."

"Hai Nabiki-sama," said the masked secretary before she vanished in a body flicker.

(0o0o0)

"Are you even winded?" asked Ryeka as Cinnamon rejoined Ranko and her at the side of the arena to watch the next match.

"Not really, both my parents give me huge energy reserves and I can enhance my body with ki easily to augment my strength," said Cinnamon. "Her weapon was powerful if it hit, but once I got inside her guard she was wide open."

"I'm so going to thrash you in the ring for that comment earlier!" growled Ranko as she glared at Cinnamon.

"Beat your first round opponent and we'll see," said Cinnamon with a smile as she pointed to the electronic board where Ranko's name was showing her up against a Takada Yuni, who turned out to be the blue haired girl with a club they'd seen earlier.

"Saotome Ranko vs Takada Yuni, Hajime!" yelled Mr. Referee.

"Saotome? As in the famous Wild Horse of Nerima?" asked Yuni as Ranko settled into a defensive stance. "Bah, all those rumors are exaggerations, there's no way a human could be that good."

"You've never met my brother," said Ranko with a smirk. "He makes the impossible possible quite often."

"Then he's in for a disappointment, I'm winning this tournament!" yelled Yuni as she charged forward and swung her club at Ranko, only to have it pass through the red haired girl's afterimage as Ranko appeared behind her.

"You're way too slow," said the Saotome girl. "A real attack should be like this, Hienrenkyaku (Flying Swallow Chain kick)!" Ranko rapidly delivered two consecutive rising kicks to Yuni's stomach that sent both of them into the air and followed it up with a downward stab that sent Yuni crashing to the ground as Ranko landed gracefully on her feet.

"You bitch, that hurt!" yelled Yuni as she climbed to her feet and glared at Ranko.

Ranko simply rolled her eyes. "You're in a tournament, you should expect to get a few bruises!"

"I'm going to pound you to the ground!" roared Yuni as she leapt into the air and flames engulfed her club.

"Kogahazan (Tiger Fang Break Slash)!" said Ranko in a bored tone as she lunged upward to counter the attack, delivered a quick roundhouse kick to Yuni's surprised face, and followed it up with another downward slash that sent Yuni crashing back to the ground. "You're spending most of this match on the ground, give up already," said Ranko.

"I'm not going to give up!" screamed Yuni as her skin turned dark red and small yellow and black horns sprouted from her head.

"Oh, an Oni, that explains your stubbornness and damage resistance," said Ranko.

"Eat this!" yelled Yuni as she swung her club to send a demon faced fireball at Ranko, who sheathed her sword and started glowing blue.

"Shishisenkou (Lion Battle Roar)!" yelled Ranko as she thrust her hands forward to shoot a blue lion shaped fireball that plowed through Yuni's demon flame and slammed into the oni girl, sending her skidding across the ring on her stomach.

Yuni started to climb to her feet only to have the wind knocked out of her as Ranko landed on her back knees first and placed her blade at Yuni's neck.

"Winner, Saotome Ranko!" yelled Mr. Announcer.

"And just think, my brother is even stronger than me," said Ranko as she climbed off Yuni and made her way other towards Ryeka and Cinnamon while Yuni stumbled over to her red haired twin, who had shifted to her own blue skinned oni form.

"Like always, you let your anger get the best of you sister," said the blue oni.

"Shut it Yuki!" growled Yuni.

"Nice going Ranko," said Ryeka, while Cinnamon tackled Ranko with a hug.

"I knew you could do it Ranko-chan!" exclaimed Cinnamon, though she noticeably refrained from attempting to sneak a feel of Ranko.

"Looks like we all get to the next round," said Ranko as she twisted out of Cinnamon's grasp and glanced around the arena. "It looks like you took out one of the major contenders Ryeka, the only two that seem they could challenge us are that blue oni girl and that armored halberd girl."

"Speaking of whom, it looks like she's up again," said Ryeka as the armored girl, whose name the board revealed as Ruby Ixen, made her way to the center of the ring and faced off against a girl with nunchaku that actually managed to get a few hits on the armored red head though they didn't penetrate her armor. Seeing all her attacks absorbed so easily, the girl surrendered, giving the halberd wielding red head another victory.

"Think any of us can break through her armor?" asked Ranko.

"If I save my energy blade for her as a surprise attack I think it would work," said Ryeka, "Maybe Cinnamon's energy weapons."

"Well, hopefully we'll be able to save a few tricks for when we fight her," said Cinnamon as her happy smile became a frown. "Because Ryeka and me are the next match!" Ranko and Ryeka's eyes widened as they saw their friend was right and the board was calling for Ryeka and Cinnamon to enter the ring.

"Oh hell, promise you won't strip me bare and ravage me in front of everyone?" asked Ryeka.

"Ranko would kill me if I did that," said Cinnamon, grabbing Ryeka's hand and pulling her towards the ring. "Now come on, we need to get started before we're both disqualified!"

Mr. Announcer glanced at both girls once they had taken their places and declared, "Masaki Ryeka vs Cinnamon, Hajime!"

Almost as soon as Mr. Announcer had finished speaking, Cinnamon was lunging forward with her staff's crystal forming an energy spear that clashed against Ryeka's boken. The two girls strained against one another for a few seconds before disengaging and snapping kicks that clashed in mid air. Both girls broke apart and hopped back, giving themselves room. Cinnamon barely managed to duck as Ryeka suddenly hurled her boken at the phoenix princess like a javelin. As Cinnamon charged in to take advantage of Ryeka disarming herself, the Jurai princess reached into her sleeve and whipped out a fresh boken that she used to parry Cinnamon's blow and drive her back with a cry of, "Thrashing Branches!"and a rapid fire series of blows.

"Okay, I guess the kid gloves are off," said Cinnamon as she tossed her staff aside and raised her hands, one holding a ball of fire and the other a ball of ice that the phoenix princess suddenly pushed together. "Antipode Staff!" said Cinnamon as a staff of ice with a column of fire running through it grew from the fusion of the two elements.

"Let's go wild!" said Ryeka with Ryoko's battle grin on her face before Cinnamon blurred forward and unleashed her own rapid jab series, only her staff released a blast of fire or ice with each block, forcing Ryeka to concentrate on dodging. The cyan haired girl countered with "Edakari: Falling Leaves!" as she leapt over the last attack and delivered a downward slash that sliced clean through Cinnamon's conjured staff. Ryeka suddenly found said staff pieces being thrown in her face as Cinnamon leapt back and grabbed up her original staff, which created an energy shield to protect her as the Antipode Staff exploded in a burst of ice and fire that engulfed Ryeka.

"I really should have warned her about that weakness of the staff," said Cinnamon with a sweat drop as she took in a slightly singed Ryeka encased in a small glacier. The phoenix princess gulped as cracks started forming on the ice and put up her energy shield just as Ryeka shattered the ice with a yell and sent ice shards flying across the ring, only for the energy barrier around the ring to absorb and melt them to mist.

"I'm impressed Cinnamon, that last one actually hurt," said Ryeka before she blurred forward and sank her elbow into Cinnamon's gut. "No more spells from you!"

Cinnamon's answer was a cheeky grin before she shimmered and faded out like a mirage as several copies of her appeared around Ryeka. "Sorry, I cast Mirror Image while you were breaking free, now Magic Missile!" The standard wizard's spell shot out at Ryeka, who scowled and braced herself as the energy blast smacked into her.

"I hate fighting mages," growled Ryeka before charging the closest Cinnamon and delivering a vicious knee to her stomach, only for the mirage to fade away and another Cinnamon to deliver a blow with her staff forming an energy hammer. Ryeka staggered from the heavy hit but spun and slashed the attacking image in half. "Great either your illusions can hit or you're swapping with them at the last minute," exclaimed Ryeka.

"Or I'm just distracting you," said one Cinnamon before the real one swooped down from above with an energy blade formed around her hand. "Shinken - Fenikkusu Burēdo (Divine Sword- Phoenix Blade)!" exclaimed the diving Cinnamon as she slashed the boken Ryeka brought up to guard in half, though the wooden blade did give Ryeka the chance she needed to leap back from the attack.

(0o0o0)

"That was a variation on Herb's soaring dragon spirit and ki blade," said Ranma as he glanced at Mousse, who nodded in return.

"Only Cinnamon can actually fly and hover in mid air, so in a way she's got better moves in mid air than Herb does," said the Amazon male.

(0o0o0)

"How many of those do you have?" demanded Cinnamon as Ryeka pulled a third boken from the subspace pocket in her sleeve while the phoenix princess used her wings to hover in mid air above her friend's immediate reach.

"More than enough to last this tournament through," said the Jurai princess with a grin.

"I was hoping to save this one, but I think you rate it," said Cinnamon as she formed a large orb of energy between her hands. "Mass Magic Missile!" yelled the young sorceress as the orb shot towards Ryeka before splitting into a dozen small ones the same size as the single magic missile Cinnamon had shot earlier that homed in on Ryeka from multiple directions at once.

"Oh hell," gasped Ryeka just before the energy blasts smashed into her and obscured her in a cloud of smoke and dust.

"I think that did it," muttered Cinnamon, only to groan as smoke faded to reveal six blue energy wings forming a sphere around Ranko as she panted slightly. "You're breaking out the Lighthawk wings so early?" asked Cinnamon.

"Actually, I used them every time I got caught in an explosion, that way I didn't take all the damage from your staff exploding and Aerith's bigger attacks," said Ryeka with a wince.

"Well, let's see how long it lasts!" With that, Cinnamon started hurling balls of fire, ice, lighting, and shadow at the shield, rapidly causing it to flicker after several blasts hit it and eventually collapse.

Ryeka narrowed her eyes even as the last fire blast collapsed the shield and leapt clear while riding the explosion right up to a surprised Cinnamon's level. "Edakari: Falling Leaves!" yelled Ryeka as she slammed her boken down on Cinnamon's head. The phoenix princess couldn't get her guard up in time and the wooden blade smashed into the top of her fiery mane. Cinnamon's eyes instantly rolled back into her head and if it hadn't been for Ryeka grabbing her as they dropped to the ground, the phoenix princess would have likely broken her neck when she fell unconscious to the ground.

"Winner by knock out, Masaki Ryeka!" yelled Mr. Announcer as Ryeka touched down and set Cinnamon down on the ground, the phoenix princess already coming around even as medics moved in to examine her.

"You hit way too hard Ryeka-chan," groaned Cinnamon.

"Well excuse me princess, who just tried to blast me with enough missiles to put Macross stock footage to shame?" asked the Jurai princess.

"I knew anything less wouldn't phase you," countered Cinnamon.

"Ummm, ladies, we need you to clear the ring," said Mr. Announcer with a tone of worry in his voice as a hawk aura had appeared over Ryeka and a phoenix was hovering over Cinnamon, the two ethereal birds screeching at one another.

The two princesses glared at one another for another minute then made their way out of the ring, Ryeka back to join Ranko and Cinnamon taking off into the stands to land next to her other friends and snuggle with Toshi.

(0o0o0)

"At least the two of you didn't destroy the ring," said Ranko as Ryeka rejoined her.

"It was pretty close, Cinnamon using that Antipode staff and it exploding when I cut it caught me off guard," said the cyan haired girl before she pointed at the ring and said, "And it looks like you're up against the sister of that oni girl you outclassed last match."

Ranko eyed the red haired and blue skinned oni girl waiting for her and her eyes narrowed. "This one won't be so easy," she predicted as she made her way to the ring.

"You handled my sister well, making her lose her temper and leave herself vulnerable to your attacks," said Yuki as Mr. Referee declared the start of the match.

"Should you be congratulating the one who beat her?" asked Ranko.

"Unlike my sister, who lets her passions rule her, I'm quite capable of looking at the bigger picture and keeping my cool," said Yuki before she blurred forward and slammed her club into Ranko's sword. Ranko's eyes widened as ice started to creep out from the point of impact and she did a sweep kick to force Yuki back.

"And your weapon can freeze mine," said Ranko as Yuki nodded before slamming her club into the ground and creating a layer of ice that almost reached the edge of the ring.

"Let's see how well you handle this slippery terrain," said the oni girl as she raised her club.

"I wish I had some ice skates," said Ranko as her legs started to slide apart. The red head's eyes widened as Yuki glided across the ice as if wearing skates, spinning her club to build up momentum and delivering a blow that caused a giant icicle to erupt from the ground at Ranko, who barely managed to block the point of the ice spike with her sword. Flipping off the spike, Ranko gave a cry of, "Shuusouraizan (Attacking Claw Thunder Slash)!" as a lightning bolt of ki shot from her sword to strike Yuki before Ranko dove down with an aerial slash that knocked the ice oni off balance. Ranko jabbed the point of her blade into the ice and used her new anchor as a pivot to spin and kick Yuki in the face. The oni girl stumbled back to the edge of the ring, only to lose her balance as Ranko fired a low level ki blast that hit her in the chest and knocked her out of the ring.

"Winner by ring out, Saotome Ranko!" yelled Mr. Referee.

"Good match," said Ranko as she extended her hand to help Yuki off the ground.

"Thank you, it appears the Saotome fame is well deserved," said Yuki with a bow before walking out of the arena with her sister.

"Nice job," said Ryeka as Ranko rejoined her. "It looks like you and I are in the semi final round."

"And so is that Ixen girl Cinnamon was worried about," said Ranko as she watched the armored red head shatter a naginata with her glaive and send her disarmed opponent flying with a body check.

"I'm not sure if I'd rather face her or you," said Ryeka with a small shudder at the armored girl's display of strength, speed, and skill.

"The feeling is mutual," said Ranko as the final match ended, giving them their fourth contestant in the semi final round, a black haired girl with her hair in a pig tail named Shizuka who fought with kunai and an unarmed style called Nadeshiko against all her opponents.

"And now we have our four potential Queen of Blades," yelled Mr. Referee. "And the first match will be Masaki Ryeka vs Shizuka after a half hour break to give all contestants some time to rest!"

(0o0o0)

"That Shizuka girl is a ninja from our homeland," said Naruto as soon as Ryeka and Ranko met up with the rest of the group at a hamburger stand. "I may not be able to see chakra like Hinata-chan, but I can smell it coming off her in waves!" The blond took a huge bite out of his triple burger, tearing at it as if it was prey struggling to escape his grasp.

Hinata nodded as she finished eating some French fries. "Her chakra system is fairly well developed, possibly Chunin level."

"So I'm going to have to watch out for ninjutsu, genjutsu, and your other ninja tools," guessed Ryeka.

"And I'm facing that scary armored red head. She's won most of her matches in under a minute unless she's toying with her opponents," said Ranko.

"And the fact she has a last name in Draconic worries me," said Cinnamon, her tone unusually serious and ignoring Toshi nuzzling into her body. "And guessing by her red hair and savage treatment of her opponent, she's connected to a red dragon, they're well known for toying with defeated enemies and torturing them."

"Add in the extreme strength she has to use to move that heavy halberd with another girl caught on the end and she's not someone I want to get in close to," said Ranko. "If she can get me in a bear hug against her armor she'll crush me."

"So stay back and fire ki blasts at her?" suggested Ryeka, getting a nod from the redhead in agreement.

"And you'll have to watch out for your opponent's speed to increase suddenly," Naruto told Ryeka. "Hinata-chan was able to clearly see her using chakra to enhance that and her strength." The cyan haired girl nodded, taking a big bite out of her burger as if it might be her last meal.

(0o0o0)

"Welcome back everyone, and now it is time for our first semi final round, Masaki Ryeka vs Shizuka!" yelled Mr. Announcer as he stood in the ring with the two girls. "Ryeka-san is the heir to three family styles and has demonstrated extraordinary resilience so far. Shizuka-san is an expert at stealth and hand thrown weapons, as well as some surprising strength for someone of her age and build." Looking between the two girls he saw both of them were ready. "Shizuka vs Ryeka, Hajime!"

Ryeka charged towards her kunoichi opponent, not wanting the girl to get a chance to use any type of ninja technique. However, the kunoichi's hands blurred and were suddenly filled with kunai that shot towards Ryeka as Shizuka cried out, "Nadeshiko-Ryū Shinku Enbu (Nadeshiko-Style Deep Crimson Dance Performance)!"

Ryeka's eyes narrowed before she skidded to a stop and her boken flashed in a blur as she rapidly swatted aside all of the projectiles. As the barrage ended, Ryeka's eyes widened as Shizuka leapt into the air and started spinning, becoming a small twister as she seemed to hang suspended in the air. "Not good!" guessed Ryeka.

The cyan haired girl's words came true as Shizuka cried out, "Enbu: Ni no Dan (Dance Performance: Second Step)!" before kunai and shuriken started shooting out towards the ring in such a wide area it was not possible for Ryeka to block all of them. The cyan haired girl winced as she felt quite a few nicks through the protection of her talisman even though she blocked as much as she could. As Shizuka's barrage slowed, her spin also stopped and she started dropping towards Ryeka while spinning head over heel as chakra gathered around her right leg. "Nadeshiko-Ryū Kōha Senkaigiri (Nadeshiko-Style Hardliner Revolving Cut)!" yelled Shizuka as she came out of the spin in an attempt to slam her foot into Ryeka's head.

"Edakari: Swirling Leaf!" yelled Ryeka as she delivered her counter attack, Her upward strike slid right in and up the inside of Shizuka's leg, slamming her boken into the ninja girl's hip while deflecting the kick. Even though the talismans they were wearing prevented serious injury, both girls could tell that Shizuka was feeling the pain of a broken hip as they landed. Ryeka kept her boken in a guard position as she slowly advanced on Shizuka, who was keeping as still as she could with her weight on her left leg. "Want to give up?" asked Ryeka.

"A ninja is willing to fight to the death if need be," said Shizuka.

"I was afraid you'd say that," muttered the cyan haired girl as she prepared for a lightning quick charge attack. Shizuka's right fist became covered in glowing chakra as she shifted her weight in preparation for a final lunge. "Edakari: Roots!" yelled Ryeka.

Shizuka's echoing cry of "Nadeshiko-Ryū Kōha Reppūken (Nadeshiko-Style Hardliner Gale Fist)!" heralded the two girls charging, but the loss of one leg meant Ryeka's speed was greater and she managed to avoid Shizuka's charge and strike the kunoichi in the ribs. Shizuka fell to the ground with a cry, her hands going to her side as her body screamed her ribs were now broken. "I give!" she gasped.

"Winner, Masaki Ryeka!" yelled Mr. Announcer. Ryeka tucked her sword into her hyperspace arsenal and bent down to help Shizuka out of the ring to the audience's cheers.

(0o0o0)

"Good match," said Ryeka as she handed Shizuka over to the medics.

"Yeah, too bad I didn't get to the final battle, there is someone I must fight," Shizuka started to say, only to have the curtain of the medical tent thrown open by two women. One was an elderly woman in a loose kimono who moved with the easy grace of an expert martial artist past their prime and the second was a tall brown haired kunoichi with a sword and a red body suit over mesh armor. "Sensei, Tokiwa-san… forgive me for my loss," she said.

"Forgive you for advancing to the semi finals with so many fights one after the other and against an opponent who is obviously not your average human?" asked the older woman with a twinkle in her eyes. "Silly girl, I let you enter this tournament to test yourself. We all need to learn our limits and you've made excellent progress."

"Shizuka-hime, you were a pleasure to watch," said the tall woman.

Sensing that things were going to get a bit emotional, Ryeka started to make her way out of the tent, only to have the elderly woman raise a hand and stop her. "Please tell your kitsune friend we'll be seeking him out after this tournament to discuss a matter between his sensei and me."

"Hai, I will…" Ryeka's voice trailed off as she realized she didn't know the woman's name.

"Yuuka," supplied the elderly woman with a smile that Ryeka returned.

"Very well Yuuka-san, I will pass that on to Naruto," said the cyan haired girl as she left the tent just in time to see the next match start.

(0o0o0)

"Our next match is Saotome Ranko vs Ruby Ixen!" yelled Mr. Referee. "Ranko-san is the younger sister of Nerima's infamous Wild Horse Saotome Ranma and is skilled in Kenjutsu as well as her family style of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū. Ruby-san is an unexpected powerhouse who has shown us just how strong armor can be. Fighter's ready?" Getting nods from the two girls, he brought his hand down with a cry of "Hajime!" before leaping back.

Ranko opened up with a cry of "Shishisenkou!" as she fired a lion shaped ki blast from her hands before grabbing her sword and slashing with a cry of, "Majinken Souga (Demon God Sword: Twin Fang)!" as she sent two waves of energy behind her first energy blast. Ruby started to dodge the first attack, only to have the smaller and faster energy waves shoot out to either side of the lion head and catch her off guard to knock her back into the path of the lion blast. As she struggled to shake off a brief dizzy spell and regain her sight from the face full of ki, the armored girl regained her vision to hear Ranko yelling, "Kokuusouhazan (Empty Space Pale Destruction Slash)!" and see a giant wave of energy shooting towards her so fast she barely managed to get her shield up in time to block. The attack slammed into the armored girl, who grunted as even through the armor and shield she felt the impact several times over and knocked her to one knee from the barrage of attacks. The weight of the armor meant Ruby took a few seconds to get back on her feet, giving Ranko a chance to charge up what she hopped was the finisher for the match. "Kuukanshouten'i (Spatial Soar Transfer)!" yelled Ranko as she blurred forward and delivered a brutal falling stab, slash, thrust, then a rising slash combo before blurring back to her starting place, though seriously winded from using so many ki heavy moves in such rapid succession as Ruby crashed to the ground after the final upward slash sent her into the air.

"An astonishing and rapid series of moves from Ranko-san, will Ruby-san be able to recover from this?" asked Mr. Referee, who started to move towards the armored red head to begin his count. "Ten… nine… eight…" he trailed off as Ruby climbed to her feet and set herself in a stance with her halberd and shield ready.

"At least you're taking me seriously," said Ruby, speaking for the first time in her matches. "Those attacks actually tickled a bit."

"I always fight seriously," said Ranko, assuming a guard stance.

"It's a shame your friend beat Cinnamon, I was hoping to face her here," said Ruby as she started inching forward with her halberd gripped in both hands and her shield on her arm to free her up for massive two handed power swings.

"What kind of beef do you have with her?" asked Ranko, trying to fish for information while maintaining her guard.

"Let's just say our families don't get along," said Ruby before she dashed forward with a charge that had sparks flying as the crescent of her halberd clashed against Ranko's sword. However, it quickly became clear that Ranko was losing in strength as she was forced back before Ruby managed to overpower her and the halberd slipped around Ranko's blade to hook Ranko's legs out from beneath her, sending the red head tumbling to the ground on her back. "You're mine!" yelled Ruby as she leapt into the air with her halberd raised for a deadly overhead strike.

Ranko rolled out of the way of the attack, flipped to her feet, and swung her sword into the shaft of Ruby's weapon as the armored girl tried to pull the halberd free from the ground it had imbedded itself in. With a sharp crack, the halberd's shaft splintered into a spray of shards. "Let's see if you can fight so well without your weapon to keep me back!" said the Saotome girl as she settled back into her stance.

"Gladly," said Ruby as she kicked her shield up into the air before catching and hurling it at Ranko. The Saotome girl reacted on instinct and there was a shower of sparks as her sword cut through the shield and sent the two halves soaring right towards Akane and Kenichi, who easily caught them.

The crackle of flames was all the warning Ranko had as she ducked under a pair of blazing scimitar that would have taken her head off if they'd hit the mark. "You used the shield to distract me as you pulled those out," said Ranko as she watched the two scimitars trace a flaming pattern in the air. Ruby clearly knew how to use her new weapons and Ranko knew round two of the fight would not be easy. Both girls settled into their stances, waiting for the split second opening they'd need to get in a strike.

(0o0o0)

Cinnamon and Thyme both went stiff as soon as they saw Ruby take her new stance. "Brother, that's…" Cinnamon trailed off as Thyme's hands gripped the seat back in front of him so tightly he left finger indentations in the metal.

"Yes, that's the exact same stance the fire dragon tribe uses," hissed Thyme.

"This is bad!" muttered Cinnamon, her eyes frantically taking in the arena. "We need to get to Akane-sensei in the judges box!"

"What's going on?" asked Naruto as the heirs of the Musk and Phoenix tribes started making their way through the seats towards the exit aisle.

"That style is used by one of the other dragon tribes in the Musk. The fire dragon tribe has never gotten along well with the earth, sky, and water tribes, especially after the union between mother and father united earth and sky," said Thyme.

"Add in the alliance with the amazons and my tribe and the Fire tribe didn't have much of a chance of advancing their goals. So they allied with some humans, specifically the Triads as highly trained martial artist enforcers," explained Cinnamon. "Their main role is to get close to a target in human form and then slice them up with those flaming scimitars."

"Then we'd better help Ranko," said Naruto as he used a Shunshin to flicker out of his seat and into the aisle with Hinata as the rest of the group followed them towards the judges' booth.

(0o0o0)

'Not good!' thought Ranko as she frantically parried the flurry of blows Ruby fired off one after another. 'She's totally dominating this fight and pushing me where ever she wants me to go! But why hasn't she pushed me out of the ring?' The Saotome girl winced as Ruby's rapid blows were making her hands lose their grip on her sword. 'I can't keep this up… so let's go unpredictable!' thought Ranko before she allowed her sword to fly out of her hands as she blocked a double strike from Ruby. The loss of resistance had the armored girl stumbling forward as Ranko rolled onto her back and delivered a two footed mule kick to Ruby's face that caused her to see stars. Shaking her head, Ruby barely had time to see Ranko in a stance like that of a ghost, hands held limp in front of her with her arms slightly bent before the Saotome girl vanished.

(0o0o0)

Nabiki's eyes widened before she muttered, "I thought Ranma sealed the Umisenken (1000 seas path) years ago, so how does Ranko know it?"

(0o0o0)

"Trying to play tricks on me?" yelled Ruby as she assumed a guard stance, only to have her feet swept apart as Ranko suddenly appeared on the ground beneath her before slipping around to her feet at Ruby's back.

(0o0o0)

"Shichū Rakuchi Sei (Stance of the Collapsing Brace)," said Ranma, his eyes intent on his sister.

(0o0o0)

"Haku Dato Shin Shō (Strike of the Spitting White Snake)!" said Ranko calmly as her hands blurred and rapidly jabbed at Ruby's armored back, causing cracks to form in the armor.

"Argh, you brat!" roared Ruby as she spun and slashed at Ranko, who ducked beneath the strike and vanished again. "Come on, fight me head on you coward!" The armored girl shifted around rapidly as she tried to keep the whole ring in sight.

"Dokuja Tanketsu Shō (Deadly Snake-Pit Probing Palm)!" said Ranko as she suddenly appeared in front of Ruby and delivered a brutal strike to her armored chest.

(0o0o0)

"That settles it, Pops is the only one who knows Umisenken AND Yamasenken (1000 Mountain Path), so he must have taught Ranko the styles," said Ranma before chuckling. "Ryu Kumon and I did agree to seal the techniques, but trust the panda to find a loophole and pass the styles on."

(0o0o0)

Ruby staggered back from Ranko's blow, her face a mask of agony as she stared at the red head. "Impossible!"

Ranko's counter argument was a cry of, "Mōko Kaimon Ha (Fierce Tiger Gate-Open Blast)!" as she whipped her arms out to knock Ruby's aside and deliver a brutal kick to her chest armor. Already strained by the first blow, the breast plate shattered at the kick and Ruby went skipping across the ground away from Ranko as the rest of her armor was torn off by each bounce, leaving her in a chain mail bikini with some armored gloves and sandals. "Alright, now I can cause some damage!" exclaimed Ranko as she picked up her sword and started towards Ruby. Just as Ranko dashed in for a low slash, a cocoon of fire enveloped Ruby and knocked Ranko back.

As the fire cleared, Ruby was revealed to have gone through a metamorphosis and had become a humanoid eastern dragon with scales that mostly resembled flames aside from some dark black bands that gave the appearance of obsidian. Opening her eyes, Ruby locked eyes of flame on Ranko and smiled a fang filled grin. "Funny, I was just thinking the same thing," said the dragoness as wisps of flame crept out from between her fangs before she unleashed a line of flame from her mouth at Ranko, who frantically dove aside, only to have Ruby sweep the flame breath after her. Barely keeping ahead of the flames literally licking at her heels, Ranko ran around the whole ring, praying her plan would work. After several circles around the ring, Ranko knew it was time to make her move and as she reached her starting point she suddenly spun and swung her sword in mid air at Ruby, whose eyes widened as a dragon made of hot and cold ki shot from the sword to slam into her and engulfed her in a small version of the Hiryū Shōten Ha.

"Flying Dragon Wave!" gasped Ranko as she tried to catch her breath. Being chased so closely by the flames had tired her out more than the amount of running should have due to the extreme heat. Her eyes widened as Ruby let out a roar from inside the tornado and shattered the binding winds before charging at Ranko with her swords raised for a decapitation attack. Ranko barely managed to fall to her back under the flashing blades, but a slight burn on her stomach had her looking down to see her protective talisman had been slashed in half and burnt to a crisp before Ruby's clawed foot stamped on her chest and pinned her to the ground. Ruby raised her swords in preparation for the final blow of the match, only to have Ryeka appear crouched over Ranko with her energy blade blazing and blocking the dragon girl's flaming scimitars.

"My turn," said the cyan haired girl as Ranma grabbed his sister and rushed her out of the ring to the first aid tent.

"It appears contestant Ranko has had to quit the field," yelled Mr. Referee as he peeked over the edge of the arena where he'd dove to avoid Ruby's flame breath. "Misaki Ryeka vs Ruby Ixen, final fight, begin!"

"You want to end up like your friend?" asked Ruby with a maniac grin, only to have Ryeka start forcing her twin scimitars up into the air as the cyan haired girl stood up.

"You tried to kill Ranko-chan, you aimed to disable her talisman and then go for a killing strike," said Ryeka simply as she took one hand from her energy blade and drew a wooden hilt from her hyper dimensional arsenal. With a snap and hiss that was familiar to nerds the world over, a second energy blade formed from the hilt of the Tenchi-ken. "You want to go sword against sword, so let's dance!" declared Ryeka before she delivered a slash with the lightsaber-like blade that had Ruby leaping back. Ryeka assumed a guard stance with her energy blade raised in front of her and the Tenchi-ken held above her head parallel to the ground while Ruby held both her blades at waist height with one pointing forward for a quick defense and the other pointed back for powerful attacks with lots of momentum.

"Now hold on, I don't think this match can go on," Kenichi started to say as he climbed onto the stage, only for a wall of fire to spring up from between each of the barriers around the ring and send him stumbling back.

"Nobody keeps me away from my prey!" growled Ruby. "That wall won't go down until I take her out!"

"Or I take you down and without you to sustain it the wall fades away," said Ryeka before she lunged forward, her blades forming arcs of light as she matched Ruby blow for blow before they got into a blade lock with Ryeka using the Tenchi-ken against Ruby's blazing scimitars. "Don't think you can break this sword, it's a family heirloom passed down for generations in my father's family."

"So it's an ancient trinket, big deal!" taunted Ruby.

"And from my mom's family I get the ability to create this energy blade and do THIS!" Ryeka shouted as her pure energy blade shrank into her fist before she punched at Ruby's chest and released the stored up energy as a blast that sent the dragon girl skidding back. Raising her hand, Ryeka unleashed a series of rapid energy blasts to keep Ruby from attacking. "And I'm barely even started!" said Ryeka with a grin.

(0o0o0)

"Please tell me at least one of you can get through that barrier and take her down!" Nabiki begged the group. The business woman was furious, this was the second killer to slip into her tournament and if she didn't take care of this it would damage her reliability in the business world.

"I think I could cut through it for a moment and slip in with Shunshin," said Naruto.

"And I'm fire proof," said Cinnamon.

"Great, then I want the two of you down by the ring in case you need to pull Ryeka's bacon out of the frying pan," said Nabiki before rubbing her head and reaching out to take the glass of water and her second aspirin of the day from the office ninja. "Yumi, I want you to clear my schedule for a few days after this, shift my meetings and get me at least three consecutive days off so I can get to a beach and relax."

"Of course Nabiki-sama," said the ninja secretary before she vanished.

"Why are the two of you still here?" Nabiki asked Naruto and Cinnamon, who gulped at the look on the woman's face and opted to take the fast route out of the judges box, via the open window.

(0o0o0)

"What's the matter, can't fight at range?" asked Ryeka as she kept on pelting Ruby with energy blasts, only to have to dodge a ball of fire and then engage in melee with Ruby once again as the dragon girl launched a berserker barrage at her. Ryeka kept her head clear, forming her energy sword once again and matching Ruby blow for blow before leaping back away from the dragon girl. "Give it up, you've lost!" said the cyan haired girl.

"You're the one who should be giving up, running away like that!" said Ruby.

Ryeka smirked and countered, "Take a look at your swords." Ruby's eyes widened as she saw numerous notches on her blades, including places where it appeared a hundred yen coin had been cut from the blades. "Your swords are only metal, my swords are energy and have been slowly cutting away at yours each time I blocked you, especially when we're in a blade lock. A few more blows and they'll break."

"Then I'll have to take your head with my next attack!" roared Ruby as she lunged forward, avoided Ryeka's counter, and brought her swords in an X shape at Ryeka's throat.

"Idiot," said Ryeka as the blades bounced off her skin, the cyan haired girl's talisman doing its job and protecting her. "And even with all that power it still felt like a bug bite." Ruby let out a scream of rage and spun to deliver a strike with both her blades held together as if they were one sword. "Game over!" said Ryeka as the Tenchi-ken sliced through the weakened blades and left Ruby wide open to the cyan haired girl's fist to the face. As Ruby staggered from the blow, Ryeka swept the dragon girl's feet out from under her so the dragon girl fell to the ground, allowing Ryeka to drive a knee into her back and place the Tenchi-ken at Ruby's neck. "You lose." Sweat was pouring from Ryeka's head as her body finally got fed up with her abusing her inhuman endurance and the strain of using the Lighthawk wings earlier.

"Winner by brutal submission, Masaki Ryeka!" yelled Mr. Referee as he peeked through the flame barrier.

"Now drop the fire wall," said Ryeka, not letting Ruby up. The dragon girl growled but did as instructed, allowing Naruto and Cinnamon to approach. Naruto was already pulling out a slip of paper that had a seal on it to prevent the wearer from using any type of power be it youki, holy, ki, or magic. Naruto slapped the talisman on Ruby's forehead as Cinnamon conjured binding shackles of water and lightning around each of the dragon girl's limbs and neck to keep her subdued.

"We'll take it from here kids," said one of Nabiki's security team as they ran up, each one armed with a katana on their back as well as several different firearms. "She won't be getting away. Ruby-san, you're under arrest for the attempted murder of Saotome Ranko."

"Take her away boys!" said Ryeka as she released Ruby and gave her a light push into the grasp of the guards, causing the dragon girl to snarl and struggle to get free before Naruto activated the talisman and zapped her into unconsciousness.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the queen of blades Masaki Ryeka!" yelled Mr. Announcer as he held up Ryeka's hands to cheers from the crows, especially from the section her friends were sitting in. "The battle between Blades and Fists will take place in two days to give all four of our royal fighters time to recover from their matches."

**Oh god, was this chapter a BITCH to write. It doesn't help that Tenchi never uses any type of noticeable special move, I had to make up a style for Ryeka and all the OCs. Not fun. I did get some help watching Deadliest Warrior, that show is great at showing how weapons work and it was a major part of how Ruby handled her halberd. Sorry for the long wait between chapters, the next one should have a little relaxation followed by the end of this tournament.**


	14. Trial 13: Royal Battle

**Hey guys, here's the next chapter. First of all a huge thanks to my two beta readers Neokenshin and xAkix. They rightfully smacked me over the head at several parts and I made sure to sit down and improve the areas they mentioned. This is almost 30 pages in word and I feel it's even better than the original version. So please leave a review telling me what you think about this chapter.**

**Second, I've removed all lemons from this fic to keep it from being taken down due to the site's moderators enforcing the no lemon policy. I've put several years into this fic and I don't want to see that wasted.**

**Third, I'm sure some of you are sick of this arc by now. Rest assured this is the last part of the tournament and the next chapter will not be a bunch of tournament fights.**

Naruto frowned as he stood on a balcony looking out over the hotel's pool. Down below, he could see Ranko squirming as Hinata and Ryeka pestered her to sit still and relax so she could recover from her defeat at Ruby's hands earlier that day. His gaze rested on Hinata and he let out a sigh.

"Wondering how to handle the fight against Hinata?" asked Ranma as he stepped out onto the balcony.

Naruto nodded and said, "Yeah, I mean, I've never really fought Hinata-chan seriously before. We're sparred lots of times, but this is more serious than that."

Ranma rubbed his forehead and sighed. "Well, if there is anything my relationship with Akane taught me, it's that she'd be more insulted if she thinks you're holding back against her," said the personification of chaos. "The same thing goes for you Akira," he said while looking down at the balcony below them where the pigtailed teen was brooding.

"Thanks Ranma-sensei," said Naruto before he jumped off the balcony and walked down the wall using chakra. Arriving at ground level, Naruto made his way over towards the girls. "Good evening ladies, could I possibly borrow my fiancée for a romantic walk?" he asked. His answer was Ryeka pushing Hinata into his arms with a grin.

"You two go make googly eyes at one another for the rest of the evening," said the cyan haired girl, causing Hinata to blush.

"Don't do anything I would do!" yelled Cinnamon from her seat by the pool where she was enjoying a massage from Toshi, much to the delight of several guys watching the two of them.

"Cinnamon-chan!" gasped Hinata with her blush deepening only to have Naruto guide her away from the perverted phoenix princess.

(0o0o0)

"It feels weird knowing that the day after tomorrow we'll be facing one another in the ring," said Hinata as Naruto led her along a path lined with trees and a few benches beneath willow trees that provided a bit more private setting for couples.

"Yeah, but we'll have to treat it as if it was the Chunin Exams and we need to do our best," said Naruto as he smiled at her.

"Then we'll give it our all?" asked Hinata, turning to look into Naruto's eyes as she took his hands.

"Yeah, and after the match the loser will be pampered by the winner, how does that sound?" suggested Naruto.

"Just you or Naruko-chan as well?" asked Hinata, a naughty smirk more at place on Cinnamon adorning her face. Naruto blinked for a moment before his eyes lost focus as he conversed with Naruko in his head.

"Well… she says she'll dress up in a French Maid outfit and serve you for one day regardless if you win or lose," said Naruto. "And if I lose I have to wear a butler costume."

Hinata giggled and hugged her fiancé. "Thank you Naruko-chan, it appears I win either way!"

"But if I win, I get to see you in the maid costume for a day!" countered Naruto, wiggling his eyebrows at Hinata in a semi perverted way.

"Ok, it's a deal," said Hinata with a blush before she leaned forward and kissed Naruto on the cheek before running away from him with a giggle as he blinked in surprise. "Come and catch me Naruto-kun!" said Hinata as she ran into a hedge maze.

Naruto shook his head before a predatory light glinted in his eyes as his tails started waving. "So my Hime-chan wants to play fox and rabbit eh? I love it when she plays hard to get!" he said before he dropped to all fours and charged into the maze, using his nose to track Hinata through the winding corridors.

(0o0o0)

"Looks like the two of you had fun!" exclaimed Cinnamon when the couple returned a few hours later, clothes notable mussed and bits of foliage stuck in their hair.

"Nothing happened," Hinata said while ignoring the lascivious smirk the phoenix princess gave her.

"Suuuurrrrreeeee," said the flame haired girl with sarcasm dripping from her words. "And your shirt is half hanging off your shoulder because?"

"Give it a rest sister," said Thyme as he brought a bottled soda to Ranko. The dragon prince had insisted on pampering the pony tailed girl as she recovered from her near death at Ruby's hands, claiming she got caught up in his family's business. He had been rushing around getting her anything she wanted and while Ranko was flattered, a few times she got annoyed and purposefully sent him off for things that would take some time to procure to give her room to breathe. She had flatly turned down Cinnamon's offers of a massage.

"We just worked out some personal terms for if one of us won the match," said Naruto. "Now who's ready for dinner?"

(0o0o0)

People could only stare in shock at the scene of devastation before them. Towers swayed and flexed as if about to collapse and the ground shook. Several onlookers had to turn away for fear of losing their last meal, while nobody wanted to go near the center of the chaos.

"Sheesh, you'd think they'd never seen a martial artist eat after a tournament," said Akira as Ryeka made huge inroads on her latest plate of food. The cyan haired girl had played tough, but she had burned lots of energy and was eating fast enough to keep up with an Akimichi. Even the group's usual big eaters, Naruto, Akira, and Kimiko, were eating at a sedate pace compared to her.

"Less talky, more food-y," said Ryeka as she wiped her face after her latest empty plate was added to the stack by the flock of Naruto clones acting as fast waiters for the group. They'd chosen an all you could eat buffet and could see the manager crying in the back at how much food they were putting away. Even Cinnamon and Ranko, normally sedate eaters, were packing away the food as if they hadn't eaten for days. When the massacre was done, the total number of plates consumed came down to about a hundred and the manager was passed out while the cooks had burnt themselves out keeping up with the teens.

"I think I've found Akimichi heaven," said Naruto as he rubbed his distended belly.

"Who's up for desert?" asked Cinnamon with a smirk before a scream of anguish from the manager told them they'd broken him. "Maybe we'd better go somewhere else…" the phoenix princess suggested as the restaurant's staff rushed to keep their manager from bashing his head to pieces on the ground.

"Leave them a good tip," said Kimiko as the group got to their feet.

"Of course," said Ryeka as Hinata and she pulled several stacks of thousand yen bills they'd been saving for situations like this from their stuff space and placed then on the table. As the two most level headed members of the group they were in charge of the teens' combined pocket money on excursions like this, mainly to prevent Naruto and Kimiko from making every meal a ramen feast. The smell of a large stack of high denomination yen bills had the manager back to his old self in seconds.

(0o0o0)

"Still no clues?" Mejiro asked as she handed Nabiki a cup of coffee. The middle Tendo sister had been working nonstop since the end of the match between Ruby and Ryeka, trying to find how the dragon girl and a user of poisoned weapons had gotten into her tournament past the background checks on all contestants. One person, she agreed, could slip through the cracks, but a second was ringing alarm bells in Nabiki's head.

"Yes, it appears someone intercepted the reports and altered them to keep our analyst from red flagging those two." said Nabiki after sipping from the cup. "The hacker is very good; it's only thanks to one of my contacts I found even a few traces of them in the system. They apparently used a back door access to slip in and do their hacking. We've closed the back door, but for them to do just that and not rob us blind means this was done for a reason."

"I'm guessing there was no luck tracing the hacker?" asked Mejiro.

Nabiki grunted and tapped a few keys on her computer, which called up a map of Japan before a red line started at the head quarters of their company and formed the outline of a hand flipping the viewer the middle finger before cutting off. "It appears they set up a bunch of dummy routers ahead of time and connected to the first one from a satellite," said Nabiki with a scowl. "We're working on finding the satellite in question to find if it has more information, but the amount of planning put into this makes me think it will be a dead end."

"Have our people been checking the locations of these dummy routers?" asked Mejiro. "Maybe those could give us some clues."

Nabiki sighed and shook her head. "Tried it, all of the ones we've been able to recover are simply programmed to send the signal to the next one in the series."

"We'll need to have internal security take a looks at our employees' accounts, see if anyone got a large pay off for insider trading," suggested Mejiro.

"Already have Yumi and the girls on it," said Nabiki. "Of course, if it was a cash hand off or to an unregistered account we might not find it. But when I find who caused all of this I'm going to make them pay! They picked the wrong person to mess with when they decided to go toe to toe with Nabiki Tendo."

(0o0o0)

"Why are we doing this again?" asked Ryeka as she tied on a blindfold. Naruto had his back to her and was doing the same thing, while a rope was tied around their waists keeping them from moving farther than five feet apart. Surrounding them were several of Naruto's shadow clones and a dozen replicas of the training remotes used for lightsaber practice in the Star Wars films.

"By fighting without our eyes and stuck together while dodging my clones and then the remotes' sting blasts we'll get in synch for our fight," explained Naruto. "Kakashi-sensei did the same thing for Sasuke, Hinata-chan, and me when we first became a team."

"You ninja are insane!" growled Ryeka. "What possible good comes from fighting blindfolded like."

"Ok guys, GO!" yelled Naruto as his clones all pulled kunai and shuriken while the remotes started bobbing and weaving through the air.

(0o0o0)

"I hate you!" growled Ryeka as she collapsed to the ground. Her clothes bore many nicks and tears from kunai and shuriken as well singes from the low powered laser blasts.

Naruto, who wasn't in much better shape himself, groaned as he rubbed a spot where a laser stinger had hit his arm. "You say that now, but now you know that you can trust me to watch your back when we're facing Hinata and Akira."

"If I ever meet your sensei I'm going to rip him a new one," Ryeka swore.

"Good luck, I can't lay a finger on him unless he wants me to," said Naruto. "Kakashi sensei graduated from the Ninja Academy at age 5, became Chūnin at age 6, Jounin at 13, and then joined ANBU. He's one of the village's elite Jounin."

"Still going to kick his ass for putting the idea of using this training method in your head," said Ryeka. "And why did you have me bring the training remotes from home?"

Naruto snorted. "Akira specializes in mid air combat, we need to be used to fighting Hinata-chan on the ground and guarding against attacks from other angles."

"The sad thing is I can't fault your reasoning," said Ryeka after a few moments of pondering. "But I have to wonder what kind of training they're going through…"

(0o0o0)

"I think this was a bad idea," said Akira as he stood back to back with Hinata inside a circle in the middle of their training room. The two hand to hand combatants were facing off against Shimoyo, Ranko, and Cinnamon with Toshi, Hiryuu, Kimiko, and Miyuki darting in and out of the fray when they saw an opening. The goal, as Hinata had explained it, was to stay inside the circle at all times, though height didn't matter. "Correction, now I know it was a bad idea!"

"But we're doing well," said Hinata as she caught a blow from Ranko's sword between her hands and twisted to send the red head stumbling away before Hinata tossed the sword to the other side of the room.

"If by well you mean we've only been nicked, then yes!" exclaimed Akira as he used both his forearms to block a claw attack from Miyuki and unleashed a jump kick that sent her flying into Kimiko as the inu hanyou girl tried to go for a hamstring attack. As the dog girl and cat girl went down in a tangle of limbs and tails, Hinata smacked a fireball from Cinnamon away with a hand covered in chakra.

The two temporary team mates leapt into the air to avoid Shimoyo coming in for a low attack while simultaneously blocking Thyme's spear as the dragon prince brought it down on them while sending Toshi flying as the Succubus went for a mid air claw swipe on them. Akira's hands blurred into the Amaguriken while Hinata's matched him with Hyaku Retsushō (Hundred Furious Palms) to send all their opponents flying across the room.

"Break!" yelled Hinata before anyone could start attacking again. As everyone slowly relaxed, the pale eyed beauty smiled. "I think we're ready, we've been able to avoid or block all the hits for the last half hour this time."

"You always have the option of flashing Naruto to knock him out Hinata," suggested Cinnamon with a grin as the Hyuuga heiress glared at her. Hearing the groans from the rest of her friends, Cinnamon snorted. "You know it would work!" she exclaimed.

(0o0o0)

"Long day?" Ryeka asked Akira as she found him doing some slow kata on the roof of the hotel.

"Yeah, and I'd say you had one too," said Akira as he eyed the numerous nicks on Ryeka's clothes where a kunai, shuriken, or laser had gotten through her defenses.

The cyan haired girl nodded and leaned against the railing at the top of the building to look out over the city as the sun set, the city's lights coming on to greet the night. "If we ever visit Naruto and Hinata in Konoha, remind me to never ever accept training from any of the ninja there," said the cyan haired girl.

Akira chuckled and nodded. "Promise."

(0o0o0)

"So you had him doing the circle drill while I had Ryeka doing the tied partner training eh?" said Naruto as he sat on a balcony with Hinata enjoying a chance to cuddle before their big fight the next day.

Hinata smiled and gently pulled Naruto's tails around her as a blanket against the light chill of the evening. "Naruto-kun, promise me that you'll fight me seriously tomorrow."

"Sure Hinata-hime, but you have to promise to do the same for me," said Naruto.

(0o0o0)

The next day dawned bright and sunny, providing beautiful weather for the royal battle. Even in the locker room set aside for Ryeka and him, Naruto's ears could pick up the sound of the packed arena. "Full crowd," he said. The blonde was polishing Nenshousaiga to a gleaming shine with a bit of cotton.

"Well, the four of us did put up the biggest shows in our divisions, so everyone who can is here to see us go crazy," said Ryeka as she double checked each of the bokken in her subspace armory to make sure they didn't have any structural weaknesses.

"This brings back memories of the third round of the Chunin Exam, I just hope nothing happens like the invasion by Sand and Sound," said Naruto as he finished cleaning his blade.

(0o0o0)

"I can just feel the excitement in the air," said Hinata as she was currently doing the splits and stretching to loosen up for the upcoming fight.

Akira nodded as he meditated to focus his ki. "Yeah, the emotions are packed out there."

"And we're going to need to go all out to keep up with Naruto-kun and Ryeka-chan's rapid healing."

"Mmmhhhm," said Akira, not fully listening as he finally found his center.

Hinata's eyes narrowed slight before she smirked. "Kind of funny how we both have to end up facing the person we care for," said Hinata.

"Yeah, we both… crud," muttered Akira as his eyes snapped open and his cheeks turned red.

"It's about time you admitted you liked Ryeka-chan," said Hinata with a smile.

"I know, but she's so smart, I'm just a jock," Akira said as his shoulders slumped. "Plus, she's got a whole galaxy full of guys to choose from, possibly including a space prince."

"But she likes you!" said Hinata as she climbed to her feet and grabbed a water bottle from the supply provided for them.

Any further conversation was cut off by a knock on the door. Opening it, Hinata found one of the arena staff holding a tray of sandwiches. "Compliments of the management Miss," said the woman with a smile.

"Arigato, a small snack is just what we need," said Hinata with a small bow before taking the tray and walking over to Akira as the woman left.

"I am hungry," said Akira as he grabbed one of the sandwiches and proceeded to take a huge bite out of it.

"Don't think I'll let up on this conversation about Ryeka, it's only delayed," Hinata said as she gestured with her own sandwich before taking a bite.

"All contestants please report to the ring!" said Nabiki's voice over the stadium's PA system. The two teens hurriedly finished their sandwiches and rushed out of the room, not noticing the woman who had brought them the sandwiches smirking as her form started to shimmer as she watched them run by.

(0o0o0)

"Welcome back everyone, joining us today are some special commentors chosen for their expertise on the types of fighters competing today. Kuno Tatewaki is a national kendo champion and expert. Elder Cologne of the Joketsuzoku is an expert in martial arts and techniques dating back over three thousand years. And Kuonji Konatsu is a genius ninja who will hopefully be able to shed some light on the strange abilities of our youngest contestants," said Nabiki. The three new judges were sitting with Nabiki in the sponsor booth with the other judges. On each side of the fighting ring, a powerful electromagnet had been set up to catch any metal projectiles that slipped through the barrier. Nabiki wasn't taking any chances after seeing how Naruto could create over a hundred weapons at once.

"And here are the King and Queen of Blades!" declared Mr. Announcer as doors at one side of the arena with a pair of katana crossed in an X shape above them opened to reveal Naruto and Ryeka as fireworks went off along a walkway to the center fighting ring. The two walked to the ring and stood in one corner, facing the door with a pair of crossed arms above it.

"And the King and Queen of Fists make their entrance!" yelled Mr. Referee as the doors opened to another shower of fireworks at Hinata and Akira's entrance. The two hand to hand combatants however didn't walk into the ring, they performed a series of rapid somersaults and finished with a twirl in mid air before landing in the ring in their fighting stances.

Not to be out down, Naruto and Ryeka both rapidly unsheathed their blades, the metal blade and wooden bokken weaving together in a rapid series of slashes before they both assumed their own stances.

"And both royal couples are ready to fight!" declared Mr. Referee.

"Let the Royal Battle Begin!" yelled Mr. Announcer as a giant gong beneath the sponsor box sounded a deep note.

Hinata exploded into motion, charging at Naruto and Ryeka as Akira unleashed several ki blasts around her to try to pin the two blade wielders down for her close range attacks.

Naruto darted forward, flinging shuriken charged with fox fire to intercept the ki blasts and detonate them prematurely while Ryeka used Naruto as a spring board to leap over Hinata and go for an overhead blow at Akira.

Akira's hands came up and captured Ryeka's bokken between his palms even as Naruto's tails snapped out to block Hinata's initial attack, his youki fixing the closed Tenketsu as soon as they were closed as the tails formed a shield between Naruto and Hinata.

"Hari Jizō (Needle Guardian)!" said Naruto as the fur on his tails hardened into spikes, causing Hinata to jerk her hands back as the sharp spikes cut into her palms. "Ranji Shigumi (Wild Lion's Mane)!" yelled Naruto as his tails lengthened to at least three times their normal length and started lashing out at Hinata while still in their hard spiked form.

"Shugohakke Rokujūyon Shō!" yelled Hinata as her palms wove a shield of chakra around herself to knock Naruto's hardened tails away while at the same time inflicting small cuts everywhere the chakra coming from her hands touched the furry appendages.

Akira twisted aside and used his grip on Ryeka's bokken to toss the cyan haired girl towards the edge of the ring while ripping the wooden sword from her grasp. Even as Ryeka flipped to land on the edge of the ring on her feet, Akira got in her face and unleashed the Chestnut Fist on her that caused her to stagger. Before the black haired boy could follow up, Ryeka's forehead came crashing down on him. "Just because I'm a genius doesn't mean I have a soft head!" taunted Ryeka as the Saotome boy staggered back from the blow.

"Mōko Takabisha (Pride of the Fierce Tiger)!" yelled Akira as he sent a blue ki blast at Ryeka, who teleported out of the way of the attack.

"Fierce opening moves from all fighters," said Mr. Referee. "Naruto and Hinata appear to be probing one another while Ryeka and Akira are trading blows.

One of Naruto's tails suddenly darted around Hinata and grabbed Akira, using him as a bludgeoning instrument against the bluette. Even as Hinata frantically tried to avoid slicing Akira apart, Ryeka appeared above them with a ki blast gathering in her hands and unleashed it at the pair as Naruto pulled his tails out of the way. "Naruto and Ryeka put their unique abilities to good use and go for a double KO seconds into the match!" yelled Mr. Announcer.

Hinata managed to grab Akira and pull him close as she yelled, "Hakkeshō Kaiten!" and used her family's traditional ultimate defense to send the blast crashing into the barrier around the ring while at the same time spinning Akira around to build up his momentum before tossing him at Naruto.

"And Hinata uses her team mate as a projectile against Naruto!" Mr. Referee roared over the cheers of the crowd.

"Saotome Ryūsei Kyaku (Shooting Star Kick)!" roared Akira as his foot was covered in ki and slammed through Naruto's tails to hit the fox boy in the face, sending him skidding across the ring. It was only a quick grab by Ryeka that kept the blond from going out of bounds.

"A quick save by Ryeka and the Blade Royals are back in the game," said Mr. Announcer.

Taking a page from Hinata's earlier move, Ryeka started spinning and Naruto rolled himself and his tails up into a giant golden wrecking ball that she hurled at Hinata, who dove to the ground to avoid being smooshed by her fiancé. Using the rest of her momentum, Ryeka hurtled down at Hinata fist first, aiming for a blow to her back to disable the blue haired girl. Even as Hinata tried to roll to her feet to block the attack, Akira caught Ryeka's descending punch on his forearms, the floor of the ring cracking around his feet from the force of the blow.

"And a mighty blow from Ryeka is intercepted by Akira, look at the strength behind that punch!" exclaimed Mr. Referee

A sudden whistling and cry of "Shiden (Swordflash)!" was Akira's only warning before Hinata's chakra covered palm smacked aside Nenshousaiga's blade as Naruto decided to go for a battōjutsu strike. Naruto however threw himself into a spin with the force of the deflection and a cry of "Ranran Kitsune Senpuu (Flaming fox Whirlwind)!" and forced Hinata and Akira to both leap over the blazing spin slash. As his opponents leapt up, Naruto was already launching his next attack. "Odori Kitsune (Leaping Kitsune)!" yelled the blonde as he slashed up at Hinata, who used her flexibility to twist out of the way of the attack as Naruto soared into the air before flipping over and descending blade first. "Enokorogusa Tsuchi (Fox Tail Hammer)!"

"A brilliant combo by Naruto," declared Mr. Announcer, "but it looks like his partner is not faring so well."

As Naruto was catching Hinata in his combo, Akira had been using Amaguriken speed to counter a rapid fire assault from Ryeka. The pig tailed teen's eyes narrowed as his hand suddenly formed a knife edge and slashed down, shearing Ryeka's overextended bokken in two. Ryeka's eyes widened as Akira delivered a spin kick to her stomach followed by an Amaguriken series of blows to her forehead that left her shaking her head to clear it.

As the cyan haired girl's eyes regained focus, she found herself about to be hit by a Mōko Takabisha. A shield of the same blue energy she'd used to protect herself from Cinnamon's attacks sprung up on her arm and blocked the attack, though the force behind the blast did push her back.

"And Ryeka displays her Light Hawk Wings on a much smaller scale than before," said Mr. Referee.

Ryeka pulled a fresh bokken from her subspace armory and eyed Akira, who seemed to be analyzing her actions and preparing a course of action. At the other side of the ring, Hinata had managed to side step Naruto's last attack and the two Shinobi were once again in their respective stances waiting for an opening in the other's guard.

(0o0o0)

"It's always so interesting to see the next generation growing," said Cologne. "One minute they can barely throw a punch and the next they're pulling off high level moves like it's nothing."

"It helps when you have the previous strongest generation training you," said Ranma with a grin.

Akane rolled her eyes and bopped her husband on the head with a mini mallet that had him wincing as he rubbed a bump. "Keep your ego under control Ranma, there's enough testosterone in this arena already," said the woman, though the smile she turned on Ranma was more of a teasing one than showing real malice.

(0o0o0)

Naruto's grip on his sword shifted just a bit and he suddenly slashed Nenshousaiga through the air with a cry of "Kaen-Giri (Flame Slash)!" and sent a wave of fire at Hinata.

The dark haired kunoichi showed her flexibility as she bent over backwards to avoid the attack before turning it into a hand stand that allowed her to mule kick Naruto in the chin before flipping to land on her feet and charge Naruto as her hands glowed with chakra. "Joudan Bakushou (High-Rank Exploding Palm)!" yelled Hinata as she swung her hands forward and released the concussive force of an explosive note from each one.

Naruto was sent flying from the shockwave, only for his tails to snap out and grab one of the pillars at the edge of the ring and use it as a pivot to swing in and blindside Akira with a kick to the head that resulted in the boys regaining their feet and facing one another while Ryeka darted in to keep Hinata from following up on her attack.

As the two sets of fighters squared off for the second time, a pink gas billowed out from beneath the elevated ring. Ryeka's passive sensors popped up a notice that the gas was harmless, while Naruto just got the scent of a spicy seasoning from his nose. However, Akira and Hinata showed a strange reaction to the gas as they tensed and their ki and chakra respectively spiked to full battle mode.

(0o0o0)

"Where the hell is that gas coming from?" demanded Nabiki.

"We're unsure Nabiki-sama," said Yumi as the kunoichi secretary. "Scans show a black box at each corner of the ring that appeared to be a support but now has power flowing through it. We are assuming since the smoke is coming from under the ring the newly activated power line is responsible."

"So why are Akira and Hinata looking like they're going into kill or be killed mode?" demanded Principal Kuno.

Konatsu's eyes had narrowed and he suddenly spoke up. "There was a drug used on me by my step family when I attempted to break free from them that unleashed my full fighting potential without any of my usual control. This might be the Toshintan used on me in a gaseous form."

"Oh hell," gasped Ranma at the thought of a killer version of his son and Hinata.

(0o0o0)

Akira's ki gathered around him in a red and black aura while Hinata's had turned a pitch black and her scent was similar to that given off by an active curse seal only without the bit of youki Orochimaru had put in his seals. "You two alright?" he asked before he had to duck a punch from Akira that made the air scream. Naruto knew instantly that if the punch had connected he would have lost his head. Similarly, Ryeka found Hinata going for killing blows instead of subjugation attacks. "Definitely not, Ryeka, they're going all out on us!"

"When did this turn into a death match?" screamed Ryeka as she had been forced to create a Light Hawk shield around each limb plus the front and back of her body to guard against Hinata's blows. The cyan haired girl was starting to feel even her reserves would be hard pressed to keep up against all the blows she was constantly defending herself from. "Just how much has Hinata been holding back until now?"

"It's got to be that gas," yelled Naruto before his eyes widened at the sight of Akira's arms covered in glowing sigils. "Not good!" yelled Naruto.

"God Hand Unleashed!" roared Akira before he blurred forward at a speed rivaling Lee with five gates open. "Kamite no Ougi, Discombobulator!" Naruto felt the breath leave his lungs as Akira leapt into the air and his legs became a blur to deliver a series of brutal kicks that each hit the same spot on Naruto's ribs, making him stagger back.

Hinata meanwhile, had become an absolute terror to Ryeka by using Tsunade level punches to stagger the cyan haired girl. The Light Hawk Wings were strong, but the force Hinata was putting out with each hit was like getting hit by a missile. "Note to self, never piss off Hinata," gasped Ryeka as sweat beaded her brow.

(0o0o0)

"This has gone on long enough!" growled Ranma as he leapt to the arena floor and charged Hinata with Kenichi going for Akira. However, both of the Royal Fist couple countered the adults. Hinata's black chakra Kaiten sent Ranma flying while Akira's roar of "Dragon Kick!" as his foot slipped past Kenichi's guard and slammed into the brown haired man's chin before the Master of the Ryōzanpaku dojo slammed into Ranma and sent both adults out of the arena. Any further attempts to interfere in the match were cut off as the force field around the ring flared into life and threw Akane back as she tried to tackle her son to the ground. "Where did that come from?" asked Ranma.

"The kick or the forcefield?" asked Kenichi as he rubbed his chin. "Your son has a strong leg."

(0o0o0)

"Yumi, heads will roll!" Nabiki said quietly as she watched her little sister bounce off the barrier and skid across the arena. "When I find out who is responsible for all this I will make them wish they'd never been born!"

(0o0o0)

Akira and Hinata turned their attention back to Naruto and Ryeka, who were standing on shaky feet and ready for the next part of the fight. "I guess we'll just have to beat them into submission," said Naruto before shuddering. "I get a sick feeling just hearing myself say that."

"Perfect," said Ryeka with a sigh. "We have to subdue two people going for killing blows and who aren't noticing how much energy they're burning with each attack. I hope you have our back up plan ready."

"Yep, plan B is a go!" said Naruto as he reached into his kunai pouch.

Akira and Hinata took that as their cue to attack, swapping targets once more. Naruto was frantically parrying Hinata's blows with Nenshousaiga while Ryeka was using the Light Hawk Wings to help her deflect Akira's blows.

"Come on Hinata-chan, snap out of it!" yelled Naruto as he swept his mate's feet out from under her with his tails. His only reply was Hinata performing a spinning handstand kick that knocked his tails away and allowed her to regain the offensive. Naruto's hand snapped down and several flash bangs caused Hinata and Akira to close their eyes long enough for Naruto and Ryeka to get some breathing room. "Look, I'll add in dinner and a full body massage every day this week if you snap out of it!"

"I swear I'm letting Grandma Washu use you as a guinea pig in her lab Akira!" yelled Ryeka just before the Saotome boy delivered a punch to the ground.

"Kamite Ougi: La Bomba!" roared Akira as a burst of energy erupted from the ground, tossing Ryeka into the air where she felt something wrap around her wrist. "Kamite Ougi: Chain Yanker!" was the last thing Ryeka heard as the ki chain was used to pull her in where Akira's free hand used her body as a punching bag. She was finally swung around and slammed to the ground. As the cyan haired girl staggered to her feet, she heard Akira yell, "Kamite Ougi: Head Slicer!" before a crescent of ki hit her neck.

Naruto's defense had crumbled once Hinata managed to tag one of his hands and Nenshousaiga slipped from his grip and the Hyuuga girl had rapidly disabled each tail he used to block her blazing palms. After the seventh hit, all of Naruto's tails were lying limp and the blond had been forced to pull a kunai to give himself a slight range advantage over Hinata. However, the Hyuuga maiden smacked a kunai slash aside with a chakra scalpel and delivered a series of five rapid blows around Naruto's heart and then seemed to twist above it and make a final jab to Naruto's heart. Naruto staggered a few steps and fell to the ground with blood streaming from his lips just as Ryeka's head hit the ground. There was a moment of horrified silence before both corpses melted into mud as Ryeka teleported in and grabbed Akira from behind in a full nelson before shooting into the air while Naruto's fox tails erupted from the ground and grabbed each of Hinata's limbs and neck followed by Naruto himself rising from the earth.

"Damn Hinata-chan, those pressure points the old ghoul taught you are nasty," said Naruto as he remembered the sensation of having his heart stopped. "If Ryeka and I hadn't swapped out with clones when I threw the flash bangs we'd both be dead. But I think I know how to purge that stuff from your system." The kitsune hanyou stalked towards his restrained mate, who struggled in the grip of his tails but couldn't break free as his right arm started glowing with youki. "Kitsunetsuki (Fox Possession)!" said Naruto as he placed his hand on Hinata's forehead.

(0o0o0)

"Hinata-chan sure has a pretty mind," said Naruto as he gazed at the entrance to an elaborate Japanese palace. Hearing the pattering of small feet, he turned to see a three year old Hinata run around the corner and perform a perfect flying tackle glomp on him.

"Naruto-kun!" chirped the adorable chibi version of his fiancée. "You'd better get in there and save me!"

"How can I save you inside if you're here?" asked Naruto.

"Save teenage me silly!" said chibi Hinata before pointing to the doors of the palace that were covered in black vines. "A bad version of me suddenly attacked her and none of the others can help since they're all fighters and the bad version drained their potential and skills with those vines. I'm the only one who doesn't fight so I'm safe."

Naruto gently pried chibi Hinata off him and put her down while ruffling her hair. "Don't worry Hinata-chan, I'll rescue you!" he exclaimed.

(Cue your favorite video game dungeon music)

Leaving chibi Hinata behind, Naruto strode towards the vine covered doors as an aura of fox fire sprang up around him. The vines seemed to reach out hungrily for Naruto, only to be burnt to a crisp by the blue flame aura. "You'll have to do better than that," said Naruto as he pushed open the doors and found himself in a hallway.

What met Naruto's gaze was disturbing to say the least. Various versions of Hinata lay crumpled on the ground, bound by more black vines that seemed to be sucking the energy from the girls. He could see one Hinata clad in the traditional robes of the Hyuuga heir, another in a kunoichi outfit, a third in a medic nin costume, and several others that represented each of Hinata's skills. What really caught his eye was a pink glow coming from around the corner as well as dancing shadows. Making his way to the end of the corridor, the blond peeked around the corner and saw a miko version of Hinata meditating with her back against a statue of a phoenix while an aura of pink flames kept the vines away from her.

As Naruto stepped into the corridor, Miko Hinata's eyes opened and she smiled at him. "Don't get close Naruto-kun, if you touch this aura you'll be purified away," she said calmly despite the sweat rolling down her forehead from holding the barrier up. "It's only thanks to the fact my powers weren't being used before the drug hit that you escaped being turned to dust in the real world."

"So tell me where the evil version is hiding and I'll take her down," said Naruto after he shuddered at the image of being purified to death.

"Just follow the vines, they'll lead you right to her," said Miko Hinata. My subconscious is fighting as hard as she can to free the true me, but she needs help.

Naruto nodded and ran along the corridor, avoiding several thick vine tendrils that attempted to grab and drain him. Reaching the center of the palace, Naruto found himself in a throne room where a panting Hinata faced off against a vine clad version of herself that looked like she'd been in a slaughter house with the amount of blood covering her. Hovering behind the vine version was Hinata in the clothes she'd worn to the match. The manifestation of Hinata's sub consciousness was struggling weakly against the vines that bound her and was the first to spot Naruto.

(Cue your favorite boss battle music, I used One Winged Angel)

The bloody vine version scowled as Naruto made his entrance by sending a wave of fox fire at her that caused her to drop Hinata right into the arms of her sub consciousness before they merged together. "How did you get in here?" she demanded.

"Fox possession, an ability I admittedly don't use much, but you've disrupted Hinata-chan's mind so much I can easily slip into it," said Naruto.

"I'll just kill you and then I'll be free to devour the last bits of her consciousness and slaughter everyone in my path!" growled the Toshintan manifestation.

Naruto snorted and settled into a fighting stance. "Lady, better people than you have tried and as you can see, I'm still alive!"

"Not for long!" screamed the bloody version of Hinata as she charged towards Naruto, only to be blindsided by a golden blur.

"And you forgot, I have a twin sister in my head," said Naruto with a grin as Naruko pinned Toshintan Hinata to the ground.

"Say goodbye you stinking weed!" said Naruko as the siblings brought blazing hands down on the vine clad Hinata, only for an explosion of vines to fling them across the room while at the same time binding the two kitsune in place.

"Fools, I feed on every bit of her anger and rage, no matter how deeply buried it is!" yelled Toshintan Hinata as her tendrils pulled in a version of Hinata clad in a blood spattered kimono. "Die and feed her rage!" The abomination raised her hands and sent razor sharp leaves flying towards the twins.

"Hakke Kūshō (Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm)!" yelled Hinata as her hands snapped forward, releasing a wave of chakra that blew away the leaves, allowing Hinata to charge in and slice the vines to pieces while grabbing her anger and leaping clear. "Haku-chan told us long ago that protecting our precious people is the key to true strength, you'll never lay a finger on them while I live!" she said as she assumed the typical Jūken stance. The blood spattered Hinata glared at the plant lady before laying her hand on the subconscious's shoulder and merging with her.

"Way to go Hinata-chan," said the twins in chorus as they took up positions on either side of her.

"You're only delaying the inevitable!" roared Toshintan Hinata as she pulled in Hinata the medic. The vines lashing the air suddenly started seeping a bright purple poison as Hinata's knowledge of the human body and plants was used to created a toxic poison. With a wave of her hands, Toshitan Hinata sent thorny vines at the threesome. However, the kitsune twins charged forward and leapt into the air towards one another.

"Uzumaki Twin Ougi: Okibi Gatsūga (Blazing Fire Fang over Fang)!" yelled the blondes as they threw themselves into a spin with fox fire blazing around them. The two blazing tornadoes tore through the vines and slammed into Toshintan Hinata, who tried to block the attack only to be caught by the twins' momentum that was combined with another Vacuum Palm from Hinata and got carried through several walls and into a courtyard in the middle of the palace even as the twins' claws freed Medic Hinata. A wave of green healing chakra sprang from Medic Hinata and restored the twins and Hinata herself before Medic Hinata joined Anger in merging with Hinata.

As the drug manifestation staggered to her feet, she saw Hinata come charging towards her and pulled a Shinobi shizoku clad version of Hinata representing Hinata's ninjutsu out before she sent a vine barrage at the girl, only for the Hyuuga Heiress to leap high into the air with the aid of twin Vacuum Palms to boost her height. Naruto and Naruko had landed at the sides of the courtyard and now leapt up to join their mate. "How are you able to use your ninjutsu when I have her in my grasp?" demanded the drug manifestation.

"I'm not going to stop until I'm completely free of you!" yelled Hinata as a giant chakra scalpel formed around each of her hands.

Toshitan Hinata scowled and her vines started performing Shugohakke Rokujūyon Shō while at the same time releasing Vacuum Palms to fling her enemies away. "Hah, how can you defeat your own ninjutsu techniques?" taunted the drug manifestation.

"It's my own technique that I created, I know every detail of it!" countered Hinata. "And you forgot something!" Seeing the confusion of Toshitan Hinata's face, Hinata smirked as her kunoichi self grinned.

"Jūkenpō Ichigekishin (Gentle Fist Art One Blow Body)!" exclaimed ninjutsu Hinata before a large burst of chakra blasted her free and into the air. Flipping in mid air she aimed her palms at the surprised Toshitan manifestation. "Hakke Hasangeki (Eight Trigrams Mountain Crusher)!" Landing next to herself, Ninjutsu Hinata grinned. "You had to have my chakra flowing from me to you to use my techniques, meaning I can control it and use it against you!" With a smirk at the battered plant woman, Ninjutsu Hinata rejoined Hinata, causing a chakra aura to spring up around her as she settled into the gentle fist stance.

"Is it wrong I'm turned on by how badass our mate is?" Naruko asked Naruto.

"Not in the least," said Naruto with a grin before he blurred. The bundle of vines that the Toshitan had just pulled into the room burst into pieces and revealed a version of Hinata with Byakugan active and the robes of the Hyuuga heiress that Naruto caught in mid air. "After all, she's our beloved hime!"

"And you just happened to rescue the princess version of her," said Naruko with a sigh before a pair of leather clad arms wrapped around her. Spinning around while simultaneously breaking the grip on her, the fox girl found herself staring at a smirking version of Hinata clad in a tight mini kimono, leather elbow length gloves, and leather thigh high boots. Naruko could only stare at the dominatrix version of Hinata, while the giggling princess Hinata in Naruto's arms could feel the results of his attraction.

"Close your mouth Naruko-chan, you don't want flies to go in," said dominatrix Hinata.

"Lust-chan, don't tease them to much or they can't help us," chided princess Hinata.

"Will both of you stop flirting with my mates and get over here!" yelled Hinata as she delivered a Tsunade punch to the Toshitan manifestation.

"I guess play time will have to wait," said lust Hinata with a sigh as princess Hinata slipped from Naruto's arms with a giggle.

"You can always get them later Lust-chan," said princess Hinata with a smile as she slid a fan out of the sleeve of her kimono and opened it to hide her mouth while her eyes flirted with Naruto over the small paper screen.

"How are you lose?" demanded the Toshitan Hinata.

"Simple, you went for all of our combat personas except Genjutsu since we don't really know any. You forgot that I know at least fifty ways to kill a guy in a bedroom and if you'd used me from the start Naruto would be in serious pain," said Lust Hinata as she uncoiled a whip from her side and cracked it against the ground. "The only reason you grabbed Hime here was because she's tied into all of the Hyuuga techniques we don't know perfectly yet or that we are still learning."

"And you forgot about more than them," said another Hinata in a chef's outfit who stepped out from around a corner holding a giant cast iron frying pan and a very sharp sushi knife. "We do know how to defend ourselves in our areas of expertise or if we need to play a role on a mission."

"And you never even sensed me," said a final voice before the toshitan manifestation found a kunai jabbed into her eye as a second Hinata clad in a Shinobi shizoku with the classic head gear appeared out of nowhere. "We're a ninja you idiot, and as I'm the stealth expert, you never even knew I was there."

"Nice going girls," said Hinata with a smile as the various manifestations all merged with her.

"I've still got one last hostage," said the Toshitan as she pulled a much bigger bundle of vines out and opened it enough to reveal an older version of Hinata slumped over from lack of air. "Your potential. I kill her and you're stuck at this level for the rest of your life."

"You only made one mistake about that," said Hinata calmly.

"Oh?" asked the Toshitan with a sinister grin.

"You threatened me with what is essentially a life crippling injury in front of Naruto and Naruko. Have fun suffering through the torture they come up with," said Hinata with a smirk before two golden blur slammed into the Toshitan and started ripping vines apart. The fox twins weren't worrying about finesse, they simply used their claws to hack apart any vines that got within reach. Hinata sighed as she approached the rapidly growing smoke cloud out of which bits of plants were flying as well as an occasional blast of fox fire. Activating her Byakugan, the Hyuuga heiress reached into the mess and deftly picked her elder self up out of the savage mauling. "Feeling better now?" Hinata asked her older counterpart.

The young woman smiled weakly and leaned against Hinata. "Yeah, much better. It helps you've got almost all the aspects of your personality merged together," she said.

"Ah good, I didn't miss the show," said Miko Hinata as she entered the room and helped Hinata purge the last traces of the poison from their future self.

"Setting just one of them on someone is cruel… both of them is inhumane," said the older Hinata.

"She tried to break me and drain all of you, no way is she getting off easy," said Hinata as the Toshitan's screams echoed through the courtyard.

Miko Hinata sighed as she brushed a piece of vine off of her hair. "She's begging for death, don't you think you've had enough fun?"

"The real question is can I even stop them?" asked Hinata.

Future Hinata giggled before putting her fingers to her lips and giving a loud piercing whistle that froze the dust cloud and revealed Naruko pulling the Toshitan's arms behind her back while one foot was pressed against the drug manifestation's back to give her leverage. Naruto had his claws buried in the vine covered chest of the false Hinata and it appeared he had just ripped out a chunk of vines that represented her heart if the black liquid dripping from it was any indication. "Ok you two, play time is over," said Future Hinata in the same tone Naruto and Hinata both remembered their mothers using to get them to go to bed or do chores.

The fox twins' ears dropped and Naruto gave the Toshitan a half hearted kick before pulling his claws from her and shuffling towards the trio of Hinata. Naruko snorted and pushed the Toshitan face down into the ground to walk over her and join her twin.

"Alright, take care of the pest and let's get back to the real world and save Akira before Ryeka-chan has to do something drastic to him," said Miko Hinata as she merged with Hinata, who noticed the Toshitan had pulled her heart back into her chest and was trying to get away.

"What about you?" Hinata asked Future Hinata as the older girl smiled and stepped back.

"I'm going to keep on growing as you keep on learning, so you can't absorb me," said the older Hinata with a smile. "Doing so would only limit you in the future, and we can't have the wife of the future Hokage not being able to keep up with him, can we?"

Hinata nodded in understanding and made her way over to where the Toshitan was trying to crawl away into the recesses of her mind and escape. The drug manifestation looked up as Hinata blocked her path and saw a bow and arrow made of pure miko power and chakra formed in Hinata's hands. "Miko Ninpo: Zaiten Kyuushi (Shrine Maiden Ninja Art: Heavenly Bow and Arrow)!" said Hinata before releasing the arrow. The glowing arrow shot across the short distance even as the Toshitan tried to throw up a defensive wall of vines. The arrow punched right through the vines and into the hole Naruto had left in the fake Hinata's chest, glowing brightly before engulfing the parasite in a wave of purifying energy that caused Naruto and Hinata to cover their eyes and stumble back before they felt a rush as if they were being swept away by a strong wind.

(0o0o0)

In the arena, Naruto staggered back as a blast of chakra and miko energy exploded from Hinata as the drug was purged from her system, causing her to pass out from the energy loss with a smile on her face as Naruto caught her before she could hit the ground.

"Winner due to knock out, Uzumaki Naruto!" yelled Mr. Referee from the side lines. "Contestants Saotome and Masaki are still not present…" The sudden impact of a cyan blur into the ground cut off Mr. Referee.

"Ugh, note to self, don't engage Akira in mid air combat even if you can fly," groaned Ryeka as she pulled herself out of the crater formed by her impact with the ground. Shaking her head to clear it, the cyan haired girl sighed and raised her hand to fire an energy blast at Akira as he came plummeting down foot first, intent on caving her skull in. The resulting explosion sent Akira off course and Ryeka teleported to his blind spot behind him as the Tenchi Ken and her ki blade blazed to life in her hands. "Masaki Nitōryū: Taka Nami (Two Sword Style: Hawk Wave)!" yelled Ryeka as she swung both swords forward, creating an energy wave that slammed into Akira. The Saotome boy managed to turn and block the blast with his arms and a burst of ki, only to find the swords flying past him as Ryeka grabbed his head and slammed her knees into his forehead followed by her feet to his stomach. The almost simultaneous hits did the trick and Akira's eyes rolled into the back of his head as he slumped over unconscious in Ryeka's arms as she lowered them to the ground.

"Winner by knock out, Masaki Ryeka!" yelled Mr. Announcer.

Naruto glanced at the barrier surrounding the ring and sighed before picking Hinata up in his arms and walking to one of the pillars projecting the energy field. "Sorry Nabiki-san," he yelled before raising one leg and delivering a kick that shattered the pillar and sent it crashing to the arena floor as the barrier vanished. Akane was by Ryeka's side instantly, checking her son's pulse and Miyuki wasn't far behind with medics rushing in behind them. They were quickly joined by Cinnamon, who started chanting and forming some mystical hand signs.

"Seinaru iyashi no mite yo warera ga karada wo kegasu hujoo naru mono wo torinozoki tamae! Dicleary" exclaimed the phoenix princess as she pressed her hands on Akira's chest, causing a green ooze to seep out of his slack mouth and into a beaker she pulled out. "Oooh, very nasty," said Cinnamon as magical symbols appeared above the glass container. "This stuff forces the body into peak performance and then removes all inhabitations so the victim can't hold back. I'd say the only thing that kept Hinata from purifying Naruto away was that her miko powers instinctively fought against it as a type of demonic possession."

"I'm really glad Hinata-chan cares so much for me," said Naruto as he kissed his mate on her forehead. "Now, the big question is who poisoned her?"

"Well, I might be able to figure that out…" said Cinnamon as the rest of the judges and their friends gathered around. "Detect Poison!" exclaimed the phoenix princess while holding onto the vial of poison. She slowly started moving her hand around the arena and suddenly focusing on Mejiro, who froze as Cinnamon's gaze bore into her like a hawk. "You, you've got traces of the poison on you!" growled the flame haired girl.

"What are you talking about?" asked the silver haired woman as she backed away from the suddenly hostile group of young teens.

"Cinnamon is right, I can smell the stuff on you!" growled Naruto.

"And I bet that you're the one who started messing things up with the contestants and the extra features in this ring," said Nabiki. "It certainly explains why we couldn't find any signs of a hacker or unauthorized modifications. You were using your company access to move around behind the scenes and make modifications to the plans to set things up for this. The only question is why you did all this Mejiro?"

The silver haired woman's look of fear melted into one of disgust as she grew a pair of fox ears and nine tails. "I slipped those killers into the tournament in the chance they'd get lucky but I was hoping to get my annoying cousin killed by his little human lover," she said before having to dodge an enraged shadow clone and pulled out a trigger device with a red switch. "But my real goal was much more simple." A quick press of the button had the tiles of the arena next to the silver nogitsune fold up and reveal a silver orb with blinking lights and LEDs all over it that rose up to Mejiro's arm level. "This lovely little device is a unique culmination of yokai knowledge and human technology. I've managed to record all the fighting styles of everyone who fought in this ring to be used in the creation in the ultimate warrior."

"Like we'll let you take our life time of training and steal it!" yelled Domon as he leapt into the ring with the rest of his group.

"My dear boy, you don't have a chance. Not even the Shuffle Alliance can take me on," said Mejiro as a black flame aura sprang up around her, keeping everyone who had been preparing to attack her back. "I knew the five of you would get into this tournament easily, the same for the daughter of Interpol's greatest investigator and the master of Shotokan and Ansatsuken. Just the six of you are a great deal of valuable combat data I could never replicate. Everyone else was just a bonus after the fact I got to see my cousin in action and analyze his techniques."

"You won't get a chance to use that data!" exclaimed Naruto as he used Shunshin to appear inside the ring of fire surrounding his cousin with Nenshousaiga drawn and ready to strike her down from behind. Mejiro spun around, what looked like a survival knife sliding out of her sleeves before it expanded into a naginata that she used to parry the blazing sword easily as Naruto's chakra had sunk down from the massive number of techniques he'd been using in rapid succession and the blow lacked the force it normally would have had. Mejiro's tails slammed into Naruto's chest before they grabbed him and used him to smack Cinnamon, Akane, Mousse, and Cologne out of the air as they attempted to attack from above.

"It's been fun everyone, but I have things to do, armies to build, contrives to conquer," said Mejiro as a helicopter flew over the stadium and released a rope ladder that she grabbed on to as heavy machine guns laid down suppressing fire on the crowd in the arena.

"You're not getting away that easily," muttered Ryeka as she pulled her modified Spartan Laser out and tried to aim it at the helicopter. "Damn," muttered Ryeka as she found that her body was not happy with the rapid teleporting she'd had to do against Akira and Hinata followed by so much use of the Light Hawk Wings and her strength wasn't up to holding the giant laser steady. Dropping the bulky laser and pulling out a small PDA the cyan haired girl aimed it at the helicopter and pressed a button that sent a small one inch disk flying at the copter that hit the back of the cabin and shifted to match the color of the helicopter before the craft was lost to sight.

Naruto's roar of "KUSO!" could be heard throughout the arena and felt when he slammed his fist into the ground, causing the ring's tile covering to shatter while the rest of the arena shook.

Kimiko had pulled out her cellphone and was already speaking to Kenshin. "Yes Sensei, she just flew out of here in a helicopter. What do you mean radar isn't picking it up? Alright fine," growled the inu girl before closing the phone with a sigh. "Bad news, she's dropped off the JASDF radar, apparently she was there one second and gone the next," she reported to the group.

"Yumi, I want a full investigation into her company's history and finances," said Nabiki. "I also want our best people working on the modifications to the arena for any clues we can get. That bitch is going to learn that you don't mess with my family!"

(0o0o0)

It was a weary group that piled off the train back in Nerima proper that evening. Jiraiya, Gishou, Hoshiko, Inuyasha, Kagome, Tenchi, Ryoko, and Ayeka were all ready to sweep their children or wards home for a good long rest, which the exhausted teens took advantage of, collapsing right into their beds once they reached their respective homes.

The next morning, just as Naruto finally finished the massive breakfast Hoshiko cooked for Hinata and him, a knock was heard at the door of Kitsune Sō (Kitsune House). Being the closest one to the door, Naruto yelled, "I've got it!" before hurrying to see who would come calling at this hour. Opening the door, he found Shizuka and two ladies, one who appeared to be Jiraiya's age. The fact that the older two both stood with the easy grace of seasoned kunoichi had the blond kitsune tensing. "Can I help you ladies?" he asked.

"Hai, could you tell Jiraiya-san that Yuuka-san is here to see him about our arrangement from when we last fought outside Nadeshiko village?" asked the elder woman with a smile.

"Yeah, please come in while I get him," said Naruto as he stood aside and let the women slip out of their shoes before leading them into the living room, where Hoshiko brought a tray of tea and started serving their guests while Naruto went to find Jiraiya. The fox boy found Jiraiya and Rōshi upstairs meditating and coughed to get their attention. "Ero-sennin, there's a lady here from Nadeshiko village who wants to see you," he said.

"Jiraiya-san, what did you do there to have one of their kunoichi after you…" Rōshi's comment trailed off as his eyes narrowed. "You didn't get one of their kunoichi knocked up during your travels, did you?"

Jiraiya's eyes were wide as he shook his head. "No, the only Nadeshiko kunoichi I ever interacted with is Yuuka-san!"

"That's her," said Naruto.

Jiraiya quickly climbed to his feet with only a wince at the look Rōshi had on him and followed Naruto downstairs, where they found Yuuka and the tall kunoichi sitting on one couch while Hinata and Shizuka eyed one another across the table containing tea and snacks. "Yuuka-san, I certainly didn't expect to see you here," said Jiraiya as he took a seat opposite the two elder kunoichi while Naruto sat next to Hinata.

"I wanted my apprentice to see some of the larger world and we happened to be in town for the tournament. Imagine my surprise when this young man turned out to be a younger version of Minato. I knew you wouldn't be far away from anyone who could use Rasengan. Allow me to introduce my apprentice Shizuka and her bodyguard Tokiwa. Shizuka's mother who was my first apprentice died in the Third Shinobi war preventing us from fulfilling our agreement, but now Shizuka is ready to face down your apprentice as we agreed when we fought to a draw."

"What agreement is this Ero-sennin?" asked Naruto as a bad feeling entered his gut.

"Well, when we fought to a draw, we decided our apprentices would face one another in our stead," explained the white haired man.

"So I have to face him/her?" Naruto and Shizuka asked at the same time as they pointed at one another.

"Yes, and if you win then Shizuka will become your wife Naruto-kun," said Yuuka with a smile.

"WHAT?" yelledd Naruto, only to stiffen as killing intent flooded the room.

Everyone could only watch as Hinata slowly got up as her hair started withering like a mass of snakes. "Jiraiya-sama…" she said as she slowly walked towards the terrified Gama Sennin, who was having flashbacks of the two times he came close to death, peeping on Tsunade and peeping on Kyuubi, though the second was on accident. "YOU IDIOT!" she roared as she delivered her best Tsunade style upper cut that sent the super pervert flying through the roof.

A series of thumps brought everyone's attention to Naruto, who was banging his head on the table. "Fuck my life!" he groaned.

(0o0o0)

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware Jiraiya had failed to tell you about this," said Yuuka after Jiraiya had crashed back through the hole in the roof.

"I forfeit," said Naruto with a groan. "No way am I going to put Hinata-chan and myself through anything like the stuff Ranma-sensei told us about."

"What, you think I'm not good enough for you?" demanded Shizuka, angrily setting her tea cup down.

"Shizuka-hime," said her bodyguard, only for the younger kunoichi to hold up a hand.

"No Tokiwa, I'm not letting this insult to my honor stand!" growled Shizuka. "You and me, outside right now!"

Naruto's eyes narrowed and he scowled at the rude girl. "Look, I've heard a story similar to this and it cause a lot of grief for everyone involved. And after yesterday I don't want to get into a fight." he said.

"You won't lay a finger on me you filthy half breed!" snarled the Nadeshiko girl.

"That's enough Shizuka!" barked Yuuka, but it was the sudden smack Hinata delivered to Shizuka's cheek that caught everyone's attention.

"Don't you dare insult Naruto like that you spoiled little brat!" hissed Hinata.

"And why not Princess?" taunted Shizuka, even as she held her hand to the large red mark forming on her cheek.

"Because I will not ignore an insult like that to my fiancé," declared Hinata as her Byakugan activated. "If you said that in Konoha you would have every one of our friends jumping you to pound you into the ground, here you've just got me so I don't have to leave any of you for them and I will make you regret those words! So if you're ready to face the consequences of your actions, follow me to the vacant lot a few blocks away!"

"Fine," said Shizuka with a sniff as Hinata and Naruto led the way out of the house.

"Hinata-chan, are you sure about this?" whispered Naruto. "Your body was under a lot of stress yesterday from being forced to fight at your peak for so long."

Hinata smiled and kissed Naruto's cheek. "I'm more than able to kick her butt Naruto-kun," she said.

"Hey Naruto, I saw Jiraiya get launched into LEO by Hinata if the aura of feminine wrath coming from your place is any indication, what's going on?" asked Ranma as he rounded the corner with the rest of his family behind him, only to blink at the sight of Shizuka. "Aren't you that Kunoichi from the tournament?" he asked.

"Yes, and she just insulted Naruto-kun in front of me," said Hinata. "Plus, her village has the same type of laws as Cologne-sensei's village."

Ranma blinked before slapping Naruto on the back. "Well Naruto, at least your fiancée is defending you instead of blaming you," said the pigtailed martial arts master, only to have said pigtail grabbed by his wife. "Hey, you have to admit that you usually took Ryoga's side without even hearing if I had a good reason for my behavior!" exclaimed Ranma.

"That's cause you always seemed determined to annoy me!" growled Akane, but the lack of any real anger in her voice told everyone the two were going through one of their bonding rituals.

(0o0o0)

"Alright, this fight is NOT going to be a death match, if I see a death blow coming and the victim unable to block it, I will use extreme force to keep you two from killing one another," said Ranma as he stood between the two kunoichi. "I also don't want to see any maiming of your opponent, got it?"

"Hai!" said Shizuka from one side of the lot.

"Understood Ranma-sensei," said Hinata with a bow.

"Alright then, Hyuuga Hinata vs Shizuka, Hajime!" yelled Ranma before leaping back as Shizuka hurled kunai and shuriken at Hinata before charging in behind the weapon screen.

Hinata didn't even blink, her hand became a blur and sent her own shuriken and kunai out to deflect the Nadeshiko kunoichi's projectiles. As the weapons fell to the ground, Shizuka leapt over them with a cry of, "Nadeshiko-Ryū Kōha Senkaigiri (Nadeshiko-Style Hardliner Revolving Cut)!" and brought her wind chakra enhanced foot down on Hinata, only to have the Hyuuga maiden twist aside from the attack and let it impact the ground, causing Shizuka's eyes to widen as the force of her blow left her stuck and unable to move.

"I've seen much faster attacks," said Hinata with a smirk as she settled into her family's Taijutsu stance. "And you made the mistake of engaging a Hyuuga in Taijutsu. Shōtei (Palm Bottom)!" It was really only a simple palm thrust, but the chakra behind the attack sent the brown haired kunoichi flying into the air. Hinata's eyes widened as she saw Shizuka's flight path would take her right to some rubbish at the edge of the lot that included some broken rebar sticking right up at an angle that would skewer the falling girl. Blurring forward with a body flicker, Hinata caught Shizuka and bounced off the fence surrounding the lot. "Phew, got you!" Hinata exclaimed, only to let out a cry of surprise as Shizuka's body burst into smoke and revealed a log covered in explosive tags. Hinata's eyes widened as the tags glowed before igniting, enveloping her in a ball of flame and smoke.

"I SAID NO LETHAL TECHNIQUES!" roared Ranma, only to have Naruto place a hand on his arm and point to where Hinata was encased in a swirling sphere of water as Shizuka burst out of the ground with a scowl on her face at her plan failing.

"Hinata-chan has been practicing with combining her water chakra with her family style to create more powerful versions," said Naruto with a proud tone in his voice. "Her Mizu Kaiten adds the spinning water for defense."

Hinata continued to spin, but everyone could see her forming hand signs within the rotating water sphere. Shizuka started weaving her own hand signs and took a deep breath. "Ressenpū (Violent Whirlwind)!" yelled the Nadeshiko kunoichi before expelling a powerful stream of wind that buffeted Hinata's water dome. However, the rapidly spinning water seemed to pick up speed from the wind, moving faster and faster until it became clear Hinata no longer needed to keep moving to continue the jutsu.

Hinata's hands stopped on the bird seal and her cry of "Suiton: Suiryūdan (Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet) no Jutsu!" was swallowed up in the roar of the water as it formed into a water dragon about the size of Shizuka and rammed into her. The brown haired kunoichi managed to resist for a few seconds before being swept off her feet as the dragon spiraled up into the air with a roar before bursting apart as Shizuka finally managed to release enough chakra to blow the dragon's head apart and spin rapidly in mid air.

"Enbu: Ni no Dan (Dance Performance: Second Step)!" yelled Shizuka as shuriken and kunai came flying from her spinning form at Hinata.

"Shugohakke Rokujūyon Shō!" yelled Hinata as her palms became a blur and chakra beams sliced every projectile out of the air. The two girls continued their techniques for a moment before Shizuka stopped spinning and dropped down towards Hinata with fist raised.

"Nadeshiko-Ryū Kōha Reppūken (Nadeshiko-Style Hardliner Gale Fist)!" yelled Shizuka as she prepared to punch right through Hinata's defense.

Just as Shizuka was about to hit Hinata, the Hyuuga heiress's hands dropped to her sides. "Jūho Sōshiken (Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists)!" yelled Hinata as she twisted away from the downward attack and rammed the lion head around her right fist into Shizuka's arm followed by the left one into her back.

Shizuka's eyes widened in pain for a split second before the force of the technique sent her flying once again, though this time Hinata let her hit the fence around the lot and slump to the ground.

"Hey, didn't that last strike look different than when she used it the last time?" asked Miyuki.

"She channeled electricity with the blow," said a wizened voice and the group turned to see Cologne perched on her staff behind them with Tenchi and his family behind her.

"Cologne-sensei is right, I hit her with Tsunade-sensei's Ranshinshō (Body Pathway Derangement) and screwed up her nervous system. She won't be getting up any time soon," said Hinata as Shizuka found herself unable to control her body.

"Fascinating, all the nerves in her body are mixed up, she can't even get up," said Washu as her holographic laptop displayed an image of Shizuka's nervous system.

"It is clear my student is unable to battle any longer," said Yuuka in a tone that made it clear she wouldn't tolerate any arguing from her student. "Shizuka, if you still wish to challenge Naruto you'd better train harder. You've used all the techniques I've taught you and need to expand your skills."

"Hai Sensei," said Shizuka as Hinata walked over to restore her nervous system.

(0o0o0)

"So, since Hinata was defending Naruto's honor then by proxy, Naruto won?" Tenchi asked as the whole group was now at the Nekohanten where Inuyasha's family had joined them. The sight of the water dragon had been enough to clue the inu hanyou that something was up and he'd brought his family prepared for war, only to arrive after the action was over. It had taken a freshly awoken Jiraiya, as the one responsible for the whole mess, agreeing to pay for everyone's lunch to get Inuyasha to calm down. Jiraiya was weeping for his bank account as Naruto, Inuyasha, Kimiko, Ranma, Akira, and Miyuki all had a growing stack of empty ramen bowls beside them. But the real surprise was that Hinata was keeping pace with all six of them and still using perfect manners.

Yuuka nodded as she munched on a gyoza dumpling. "Yes, it is quite clear to me that the bond between Naruto-kun and Hinata-chan is very strong and true. To try to force my apprentice to break them up is a foolish endeavor," said the elder kunoichi. Nobody was certain since her mouth appeared to be full, but everyone with enhanced hearing was almost certain they heard Hinata mutter, "Damn straight!"

(0o0o0)

Yuuka, Shizuka, and Tokiwa left the next day after Shizuka recovered from her defeat at Hinata's hands, but not before the brown haired kunoichi swore that once she had grown stronger she would face Naruto for real.

(0o0o0)

"Well Hinata, I think that fight with Shizuka got rid of the last traces of the drug in your system," said Washu as she typed on her holo laptop. The bluette had been a bit worried the drug had influenced her during the fight with Shizuka and asked Washu to examine her.

"So I wasn't quite my right self," said Hinata quietly, a frown forming on her face as she considered what she could have done to the other kunoichi.

"Maybe, but you didn't kill her," said Kagome from where she stood over Hinata emitting purifying energy to ensure there was no corruption left. "You have more control over yourself than Naruto or Inuyasha ever did in their enraged states."

"Certainly more than me," said Akane with a sardonic smirk from her position against the wall.

"Yes, you even saved your opponent's life when you thought she was about to die," said Ayeka with a smile. "If you were truly under the drug's influence you would have let her die or be seriously hurt."

"But all I needed to do was poke her once in the right spot and she would have died!" wailed Hinata. "I could here the Toshitan inside me. It was telling me to slaughter her and prove I was the only one worthy of Naruto."

"Hinata, look at me!" said Ayeka as she grabbed the bluette's hands and forced Hinata to look her in the eye. "When I first met Ryoko I only wanted to beat her and then make sure I was the only one in Tenchi's heart. But Tenchi listened to his heart and chose both of us. Naruto has clearly chosen you and any fools who come between you will feel the wrath of the two of you combined."

"Ayeka is right," said Kagome as she bent down and hugged Hinata. "I used to go into a depression whenever Inuyasha went chasing after the resurrected Kikyo, but he was slowly caring more and more for me instead of her. When he finally chose me over her it was the happiest moment in my life outside of holding Kimiko in my arms for the first time. But even before that Inuyasha was willing to constantly put his life on the line for me. Naruto's human and demon halves both love you dearly, you're the only one who can be around his demon form and not be hurt."

Ryoko suddenly phased into the room and took in the gloomy atmosphere. "Why the long faces? You should be outside seeing Naruto spar with that ice-using brat and his dad," said the cyan haired woman.

(0o0o0)

When the women exited Washu's lab they found themselves inside the Misaki home in the mountains where Ryoko had at one time been sealed beneath the family shrine. The sounds of fighting from outside led them to where Rikuo was observing a sparring match between Naruto and Shimoyo. "Good Naruto, you're getting better at sensing Shimoyo's fear and countering it. I believe what you describe as killing intent has made you sensitive to auras such as this," said the Nura clan head. "Remember, you need to manifest your characteristics as a yokai."

"But Inari-kami-sama has forbidden kitsune hanyou of less than nine tails from changing into their full kitsune forms," said Naruto as he brushed a bit of ice off his side.

"But you used that partial beast form against that vampire," said Thyme from where he was sitting with the rest of their friends.

"Kitsune Jūjin (Fox Beast Man Transformation) is a sage technique where I have to gather natural energy first and then power a partial transformation with it. It fades if I get knocked out while the true transformation would stick with me no matter what." explained Naruto. "I doubt Mejiro will let me stand around to gather the energy I need for it. And I showed that bitch most of my special moves, I need some new tricks to beat her."

"Then maybe Shimoyo is the wrong opponent for you," said Shippo as he gently removed himself from Rin's arms. "You are a skilled kitsune, maybe you need to face one with more experience." As he spoke, the brown fox pulled Heart's Fire from its sheath at his side. Forged from a fire dragon's fang, the blade seemed to have flames dancing along it as well as a handle of red fire rat hide leather. "I've got all the experience of facing off against Naraku behind me and training from Inuyasha and Sesshomaru, so give it all you've got!"

"Shippo-senpai," said Naruto before grinning and bowing to the older kitsune.

"We'll start with the tried and true methods," said Shippo before pulling a top from his kimono sleeve. "Smashing Top!" yelled the elder fox as he tossed the top at Naruto while yanking on the spinner cord. Naruto's eyes widened as the top seemed to grow to giant size and broke through his guard while drilling into his chest. The blonde fox gave a yell as he released a burst of chakra that caused the top to erupt in a cloud of smoke and revert to normal size. Naruto hopped to his feet only to see a serpentine green dragon charging towards him. Reacting on instinct, Naruto unsheathed Nenshousaiga in a quick draw that bisected the dragon from mouth to tail, causing it to revert to a toy wooden snake split in half lengthwise.

"You'll have to do better than that Senpai!" said Naruto before being forced to dodge a swarm of leaves engulfed in fox fire.

"Come on Naruto, this should be child's play for you," said Shippo as numerous copies of him appeared around the lake shore in various poses and all speaking at once to throw off Naruto's sense of hearing.

"You asked for this senpai!" yelled Naruto as he formed the cross shaped seal to summon a horde of clones that each targeted one of Shippo's and landed a blow to them, causing all but one to burst into smoke and become crying mushrooms. "When it comes to clones, I'm da bomb!" exclaimed the Naruto by the real Shippo, who was sent flying by the clone's detonation.

"Damn it Naruto, stop fighting like a ninja and fight like a kitsune!" yelled Shippo once he recovered from his sudden flight.

"I can't help it, I'm going on years of training!" growled Naruto.

"I've got an idea," said Inuyasha as he climbed to his feet. "Naruto, send a ranged attack at me." The silver haired hanyou drew Tessaiga and held it in a ready stance.

"Ugh, Inuyasha-sensei, isn't that a bit much?" asked Naruto.

"Shippo may have nine tails, but that's since his clan manifests their maximum number of tails when they need that power before they reach the right age and he's lacking in experience when it comes to actual fighting. Me on the other hand, I'm over two hundred years old and an expert at fighting with yokai," said Inuyasha.

"Ummm, I have a suggestion," said Hinata, causing everyone to look at her. "I've noticed Naruto-kun's Tenketsu are slightly different than those of a human or a pure yokai. I think his opening points are split for chakra and youki. If I take my time with him sitting still, I can shut off the chakra parts and force Naruto-kun to just use his youki."

"That would probably work," agreed Ranma after a moment of thought.

"Alright Hinata-chan, go for it!" said Naruto with a grin, only to blink as Hinata's face turned bright red. "What's wrong?"

"Well, for me to be perfectly accurate… you'll need to strip to your underwear," said Hinata as her face went tomato red.

"Kami must be laughing at me," said Naruto with a groan as he started pulling his shirt off.

(0o0o0)

"Ok Naruto, you ready?" asked Inuyasha half an hour later once Hinata managed to shut down all of the chakra-emitting Tenketsu on Naruto's body.

"Yeah, but damn this feels weird," said Naruto.

"Just try emitting killing intent with your youki to start, if you're producing any youki aura I'll be able to sense it," said Inuyasha as he unsheathed Tessaiga and assumed a ready stance.

Naruto took the Inu Hanyou's words to heart and tried to unleash his killing intent, only to feel his youki flaring up the strongest it had ever been aside from when he was denied seeing Hinata for a month and went feral in the Forest of Death. Naruto could feel the youki shaping itself and he struggled to hold back the tide of power rising behind him before failing and letting it rush out and engulf the area. The only thing Naruto saw were flames swirling around him before he lost consciousness.

(0o0o0)

"Ugh, did Chouji just roll over me?" asked Naruto as he slowly regained consciousness, finding himself in a guest room at the Misaki house. "No… I was training with Inuyasha-sensei…" the memory of losing control of his new technique had Naruto scrambling to get out of bed and make sure everyone was okay, only to have Ryoko teleport into the room and hold him down.

"Easy brat, you just knocked yourself out, Hinata said your system basically shut itself down to keep you from losing control like you did against Yun. Nobody was hurt, but we all felt that technique. Any weaker enemy hit by that will be down for the count in a heartbeat!" exclaimed the cyan haired woman.

"But I still need to work to control it, the technique was so strong I lost control and blacked out," said Naruto as he clenched his fist in frustration.

"Then no time like the present," said Ryoko with a prankster smirk before grabbing Naruto and tossing him out the window right at Inuyasha, much to the blonde's anger if his scream was anything to go on.

(0o0o0)

"Well Naruto, you certainly have talent, mastering Hatsu (Manifestation) and Hyoui (Haunting) so quickly," said Rikuo with a grin as he stood over the panting kitsune hanyou. "Now remember, it's important to hit your enemy with your Hatsu technique first to paralyze them before using your Hyoui. The more fear you can build up in them of you the better your technique will be."

"Thanks Rikuo-sensei," gasped Naruto before flopping over onto his back to gaze up at the sky. "Heh, that bitch won't know what hit her when I get done with her," said Naruto.

"Naruto, phone!" yelled Akira as he chucked Naruto's cell phone at the blonde fox boy, who easily caught it.

"Moshi moshi," said Naruto.

"Naruto, it's Kenshin, we've finally got some intelligence on Mejiro and I need your whole group at the US Okinawan military base since they're officially in charge of this," said the voice of his ninjutsu teacher.

"I'll be there with bells and whistles Sensei," said Naruto before hanging up and grinning. It was time to take the fight to Mejiro.


	15. Trial 14: Gold vs Silver

**Well folks, you can thank the speed of this chapter by me going to Yosemite with my family. I was waking up before everyone else and was so bored I just wrote. 15 pages in three days. Ugh. Don't expect the next chapter out quick, it's all original and I'll need more time for it.**

It was by far the strangest briefing the Kaneda Air Force Base had ever seen. The briefing room was filled with half human half yokai, ninja, martial artists, magical girls, and even aliens. At the front of the room was a green haired woman in a military outfit, a blond haired man in military fatigues, a Chinese woman in a blue qipao, and a muscular Japanese man in a karate gi. Seated in the briefing room were all of Naruto's friends, Domon's group, Lin-li, Rachel Nash, and the judges from the event.

"Everyone, thanks for coming on such short notice," said the blonde haired man as he stepped up to the podium at the front of the room. "I'm Colonel Guile of the US Air Force. Behind me are Interpol Inspector Chun Li, Natasha Gulskii of the Shuffle Alliance, and Ryu the winner of two World Warrior tournaments. You've all been asked to be here due to your connections with this woman." An image of Mejiro on the screen behind Guile had most of the audience scowling. "Mejiro has been operating in the public sector as a military contractor, but in reality she's the Silver General in command of an elite group of mercenaries. Interpol, CIA, JSDF, and other crime fighting organizations have been on her trail for years, but she's kept low. Until now she just provided trained men to terrorists and didn't dirty her own hands directly, but now we finally have a link between her public persona and her mercenary one in the form of her interference at Tendo-san's tournament." Guile paused for a moment and his fingers dug into the wooden podium. "My adopted daughter Rachel Nash was in that tournament and so were many of you kids her age. This woman was willing to turn a pair of murderers loose just to get at one person and she has an army under her control. I personally want to see her entire criminal empire burning around her before we're done with her. Natasha, if you will?"

The green haired woman stepped forward while gripping a riding crop in her hands. "For those of you who don't know, the Shuffle Alliance is composed of the best fighters of their generation. We are a special operations unit sanctioned by the United Nations with members from various countries who eliminate terrorists behind the scenes. Our current target is Mejiro. She currently supplies terrorist organizations all around the world with material and people. As there was a rumor that the winners of Tendo-san's tournament would get to see her public factory in a private tour, were (*we) entered our fighters and a few allies in the tournament to try to get a chance at finding something to persuade various nations that we could go in and take her down. However, in her haste to target Uzumaki-san, she gave us all the evidence we needed. The main problem is her central headquarters." The image of Mejiro was replaced by an island. "This small man-made land mass is only a few square kilometers, but it is still enough to hold a large fortress and factory that Mejiro uses as her main base plus training facilities for her men. We believe she'll be using the data she gathered at the tournament to enhance her troops' abilities so conventional weapons are useless against them. The island also features several farms and our intelligence indicates that they have some way of opening a portal to bring in additional supplies so we can't just starve them out. Adding to the difficulty of infiltrating the island, all of Mejiro's men have a bio chip implanted in them that allows them access through a barrier around the island. Anyone not in possession of one of these chips is repelled by the barrier." She cut off as Naruto's hand shot up. "Yes Uzumaki-san?"

"Do you have any of these chips I can examine?" asked the blonde. "This sounds suspiciously like the barrier technique surrounding my ninja village and the larger one hiding the continent it's on."

"We'll let you examine the chips we do have, but I'm afraid they cease to function once they're removed or the holder is dead," said Natasha with a frown.

"Then I'll need Washu-sensei and Hinata-chan to help me, between the three of us we should be able to figure them out," said Naruto.

"In addition to the barrier, the island also features geographical defenses," said Natasha as she tapped her riding crop on the buildings in the center of the picture. "The fortress and factory are located on a plateau with the only way up to them from the beach easily held by a small force. Add in the large clear area around them and you have a kill zone anyone attacking the castle must cross."

"Wish we had Shikamaru here," Naruto muttered to Hinata before seeing Rikuo raise his hand.

"What about sending in troops via air? Surely a plane could fly over the island and drop paratroopers," said the hanyou Yakuza.

Guile shook his head. "We tried that once, the barrier messes with electronic instruments and the plane wasn't able to reach the drop zone while the barrier repelled the one paratrooper who managed to glide into it. The only way we can sneak in is onboard the supply ship that comes into the harbor once a week. Our last agent who tried that method got captured and fed to the sharks though."

"So the main problem is the barrier," said Ranma.

"Then the sooner we start examining the chips the sooner we can get to my cousin," said Naruto as he climbed to his feet with Hinata and Washu following.

"While you three analyze the chips, the rest of us will discuss possible plans," said Natasha before gesturing to a brown haired woman sitting next to Domon. "Rain Mikamura is the world's leading expert on cybernetics and will be joining you three." Rain stood with a smile and bowed before leading the trio to an examination room with microscopes, magnifying glasses, and other tools for examining small electronics.

"So Naruto, care to tell me why you asked for me instead of Ryeka?" asked Washu.

"You are the Greatest Scientific Genius in the Universe and have years of experience on Ryeka, so something she might miss could be the key to all this," said the fox boy.

"In the universe?" asked Rain with a smile. "What about the fact there might be intelligent life on other planets?"

"Lady, she is life from another planet," said Naruto before waving his tails and twitching his ears for emphasis. "I'm a Kitsune hanyou and Hinata is not just my super gorgeous fiancée." Hinata activated her Byakugan to prove the point while Washu already had her holo laptop out and scanning a chip on the table. "She's also the heir to one of the strongest ninja clans in our village and able to kill a person with a single poke if she wants to."

"Domon mentioned your group was not normal, but I thought he was talking about personalities, not you being an actual fox," said Rain as she led the way to a bank of drawers in the wall that radiated cool air. "These are the remains of Mejiro's men that have been captured over the last few years. Each of them died suddenly during interrogation and we've been stumped since they've been thoroughly searched for suicide pills and such. We couldn't find any implants to explain the sudden cause of deaths."

"This sounds like your area of expertise Hinata-chan," said Naruto, giving his fiancée a bowing gesture to step forward while he moved to stand by Washu, who was now examining a holographic model of the chip at a high magnification to make out specific details.

"Byakugan," said Hinata as she activated her bloodline, only to gasp. "Amazing, all these bodies have remains of a chakra network. It's only as well developed as an average genin, but that still makes them stronger and tougher than the average thug. And I can see where it appears something was broken from the network. Rain-san, do you have notes showing where the chips were on each of these men?" Rain turned to a stack of folders and searched for a moment before handing one to Hinata. The bluette took the folder and leafed through it until she found the page matching the body she was working on. Grabbing a marker from a board on the wall, Hinata made a mark on the body where she saw the chakra network had been damaged and compared it to the photo showing the location of the chip. As she examined the rest of the bodies, Hinata's eyes narrowed. "These chips are somehow attached to these chakra networks, but that's impossible!" she exclaimed as she finished examining the last body. All ten had markings in different places, but it was clear to her that removing the chips had been like opening one of the Eight Inner Gates and sending a surge of chakra through the men's' bodies that killed them.

"Maybe not," said Naruto as he reached out and pointed to where Washu's computer model of the chip they were studying had been expanded into multiple layers making the chip look like a sandwich. "See, in this layer how there is some really fine circuitry? Those are seals. They're similar to those used in prosthetics in Suna from scrolls Ero-sennin had shown me that allows chakra to flow through the artificial limbs."

"What's a chakra network?" asked Rain.

"Chakra is the molding of the physical energy present in every cell of the body and the spiritual energy gained from exercise and experience," said Hinata as she drew the diagram Iruka had used to teach them in the academy. "Once molded, it can be channeled through the chakra circulatory system, which is to chakra as the regular circulatory system is to blood, to any of the 361 chakra points called Tenketsu in the body. Through various methods, the most common of which is hand seals, the chakra can then be manipulated to create an effect that would not be possible otherwise, such as walking on water, exhaling fire or creating illusions." Naruto formed the ram hand seal and walked up the wall of the room to the ceiling before exhaling a small tongue of flame with the tiger hand seal. "But these chakra networks are not natural," said Hinata as she used the marker to draw a line from the chip's former location on the closest body. The line started out thick and grew thinner the farther it got from where the chip had been. "A natural chakra network is the same thickness all around barring serious injury," explained Hinata.

"So they've figured out how to create an artificial chakra network around these chips?" asked Rain.

Naruto dropped to the ground while flipping to land on his feet. "Yeah, and I'm willing to bet that the barrier around the island can sense these chakra networks and keeps anyone who doesn't have one out," said the blonde before he picked up the chips and took a sniff of all of them at once. "Hinata does the chakra on these chips look at all familiar to you?" he asked.

Hinata focused her Byakugan on the chips and her eyes narrowed. "It's just like the youki I've seen in the rest of your cousins, but most similar to Kuroten's youki," said the Hyuuga heiress.

"That's what I thought too, when they're all close together I get Mejiro's scent," said Naruto before grinning. "But that means these run on kitsune youki, so I might be able to do some modifications and make the chips work for us."

"Well, that explains why I can't find any type of broadcasting circuits on these things," said Washu. "That rules out a purely technological barrier."

"I'm calling in Ero-sennin, I need his expertise for this," said Naruto as he prepared to set up a summoning exchange to get the perverted hermit to the base quickly.

(0o0o0)

"So how are we going to assault this place?" Chibodee asked after the research group had left the briefing room.

Chun-li stepped forward and pointed to once of a series of towers surrounding the island. "From what our satellites can tell and the drones the USAF have tested about the defenses, these towers each hold anti aircraft guns and they're very accurate. Anything larger than a human being is hit and blown out of the sky," said the Chinese beauty.

"What about birds and such, wouldn't those flying through the barrier drive their sensors crazy?" asked Ryeka.

"Birds never have as much ki in them as humans, so it would take a huge swarm to come close to matching your average soldier," said Ryu, his voice sounding rough as if he wasn't used to speaking.

"Do any of the mercenaries ever come to Japan for 'recreational activities'?" Kimiko asked with a disturbed look on her face.

Guile and Ryu both smirked and nodded. "We caught a group of them getting rowdy in a bar and showed them what real martial artists can do," said the colonel with a smirk.

"So could we maybe sneak a team in by disguising them as some of her men coming back from a leave?" the hanyou miko continued.

The adults glanced at one another for a second before Natasha pulled out a PDA and jotted the idea down with a stylus. "We'll keep that in mind."

"If you can get me close to the barrier, I might be able to cut through it with Tessaiga," said Inuyasha as he unsheathed the blade before it was covered in diamonds. "My Kongōsōha (Diamond Spear Blast) is an attack that can rip barriers apart."

"Excellent," said Natasha. "That will be our back up plan in case the research group is unable to modify the chips.

(0o0o0)

"I think my eyes are ready to burst," said Naruto after several hours of staring at the sealing diagrams he'd be working with for the chips.

"That's one of the dangers of working with sealing on this level," said Jiraiya. It had taken some quick explanations from Naruto, but Natasha and Guile had approved the reverse summoning of Jiraiya to the base. "Normally even a master like your dad or me will write out the formula on a giant paper or scroll before using a jutsu to shrink it. That same technique can be reversed to enlarge seals for modification and repair. But this… all these seals were done at this small size from the start. Mejiro's technology and sealing level are both pretty good."

"Given how tough these are to modify, I don't think we can tinker with these too much," said Naruto. "I'd say we can get the chips to work with an existing chakra network or youki or mask a person without having either as having the network required to get through the barrier."

Jiraiya nodded in agreement before frowning at Naruto. "You've got the same look your dad had before he started working on Hiraishin. You've got something crazy planned that will make us want to toss you in the loony bin."

Hinata's eyes narrowed and she focused on Naruto. "Naruto-kun…" her voice held a hint of threat that the blonde should spill his guts now or he would regret it.

"Okay, I can't do a whole bunch of modifications to the chips," said Naruto with a sigh. "Even with Ero-sennin's help, I couldn't possibly do more than use the chips to make my chakra take on the properties of Mejiro's chakra to get me through the barrier. There's very little room on the chips for individual modifications and I would need all ten to mask myself by making a circuit using them. Heck, I'll need a whole body suit with seals on it to keep the masking chakra stable and let me through the barrier!" Seeing Jiraiya's face turn pale, Naruto spun around to see a furious and horrified looking Hinata. "Aw crap," muttered Naruto.

(0o0o0)

"You want to go to that island alone?" Hinata's shriek echoed through the base, causing Inuyasha, Kagome, Kimiko, Shippo, Rin, and Miyuki to all wince as her normally soft and gentle voice hit their sensitive ears.

"Well, we'd better go keep Hinata from putting him in the hospital," said Ranma with a sigh.

(0o0o0)

"Now Hinata-chan," said Naruto as he slowly backed up from the advancing Hyuuga princess. Hinata's hair was fluttering in the air and resembled snakes while her bangs had dropped over her eyes and hid them in shadow. Rain and Jiraiya had wisely gotten out of the danger zone and were watching from the doorway as Hinata slowly walked towards Naruto.

"Don't Hinata-chan me!" said Hinata in a low tone that Jiraiya knew came from listening to Kyuubi, Rin, and Tsunade lay down the law on Ken, Kakashi, and himself respectively.

"So what'd we miss?" asked Ranma as he sidled up next to Jiraiya.

"Naruto says we can only get the chips to work right for him, and he's correct," said the toad sage before holding up a finger to silence any further questions as Naruto had finally slipped up and backed himself into a literal corner of the room.

"Every time you go alone you seem to get seriously hurt," said Hinata as her fists trembled. "Kimiko-chan and you ended up facing those gangsters alone, Kuroten kidnapped you, you almost got killed by that vampire, with Yun you had to face a dragon and only had Cinnamon-chan for back up, and now you want to go to the island of a madwoman trying to kill you who has her own private army ready to hunt you down?"

"Honestly Hinata-chan, I'd be happy if these assholes just left me alone. If it wasn't for the fact they would turn the kitsune clan into pure evil I might even give them the title of heir to fight amongst themselves over. But I have a duty to the clan to look out for its best interests," said Naruto. "What kind of Hokage would I be if I couldn't help protect a clan from a bunch of evil thugs?" Gently brushing Hinata's hair back he kissed her forehead. "And I keep having nightmares about what they might do to you to get me to give in. I'm not going to let them hold a dagger over my head and the only way to keep that from happening is to take them down hard!"

"He's got the same tone of voice you used when you fought Saffron," Akane whispered to Ranma. The rest of Naruto's friends and sensei were hiding outside the lab and listening in on the couple.

"And when you took on Kagato," said Ryoko as she wrapped her arms around Tenchi.

(0o0o0)

"Naruto-kun," whispered Hinata before grabbing his head and pulling him into a fierce kiss. "You baka fox, you'd better hope you survive because if I have to patch you up you'll wish Mejiro had finished you off!" she exclaimed before hugging him, tears soaking the front of his jacket.

"Relax Hinata, Naruto's the kind of guy who will fight through hell to get back to his beloved," said Kagome as she stepped in and gently pried the young heiress from Naruto. "Now he needs to get to work on those chips, so you're going to come with me and make enough supplies ninja style so he can take on whatever he encounters on that island." Hinata wiped her eyes and nodded, though the glance she threw back over her shoulder and Naruto said she still wasn't happy about this plan.

(0o0o0)

Ten hours later, Naruto and Jiraiya both stumbled out of their impromptu work room with exhausted looks on their faces. The two had been working nonstop on the chips and suit that would be used with them, calling Hinata in for constant checks on the chakra signature. For Naruto, the most difficult part was having to stand still in a skin tight bodysuit as Jiraiya painstakingly drew the series of seals that would combine with the chips to get him through the barrier. "My eyes and fingers hurt," groaned Jiraiya.

"How do you think I feel standing in one place like that?" asked Naruto and he walked like his entire body was asleep. "Sage training is one thing, but usually I'm sitting down and feeling my chakra flowing. Standing and keeping my chakra still so it doesn't ruin the suit is a pain in the butt."

"We all make sacrifices Gaki," said Jiraiya as they made their way to a cafeteria where they sat down with groans.

"How's the suit going?" asked Kagome as she placed a cup of herbal tea in front of each Shinobi.

"Difficult," said Naruto with a groan as he sipped from his cup. "We've only managed to get about half of the suit done. Making sure the chakra the suit absorbs and supplies the chips with stay constant is a pain in the butt."

Kagome ruffled Naruto's hair lightly, causing him to smile at the same gesture his mother had used when he was frustrated by a project or studying for a test at the academy. "Don't worry Naruto, I know you'll figure this out," she said.

"What, no encouragement for me?" whined Jiraiya, only to get a bop on the head from Kagome.

"Concentrate on the task at hand you pervert," said the hanyou miko.

"No appreciation I tell you," Jiraiya grumbled as he pouted.

"That's what you get for being such a super pervert Ero-sennin," Naruto taunted his teacher.

Naruto's nose twitched as he caught a scent he hadn't smelled in over a year as the door to the cafeteria opened and revealed Hinata with several bowls of ramen on a tray. "It seems my timing was perfect," said Hinata with a smile as she weaved through the tables towards Naruto.

"Hinata-chan… is that my mom's home cooked, every meat, tasty veggie ramen?" Naruto asked as drool started to gather in his mouth. "The one she only makes me for very special occasions?"

"Hai, your mother made sure I would know how to make it for special occasions before we left," said Hinata as she set the tray down before Naruto.

"Hinata-chan, YOU'RE THE BEST GIRLFRIEND EVER!" yelled Naruto as soon as the tray was safely on the table so he could grab Hinata in a hug and spin her around before his hand lashed out and hit Inuyasha in the face. The silver haired hanyou had entered the room and caught the scent of the noodles, instinct kicking in and making him go for the tasty treat. "HANDS OFF MY RAMEN SENSEI!" roared Naruto as the soldiers who had been watching the group scrambled to get out of the danger zone.

Any reply Inuyasha was going to make got cut off by Kagome grabbing his ear and yanking hard. "YEOWCH! KAGOME, LET ME GO!" yelled the half demon.

"Hinata-chan made that ramen specially for Naruto-kun, you don't get any!" declared Kagome before dragging her mate out of the cafeteria even as he begged her to release him.

Hinata shook her head at the older hanyou's antics before turning to see Naruto had yet to pick up his chopsticks. "Is something wrong Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked, worried she might have messed up the recipe in some way.

"No Hinata-chan, the scent is exactly the same as I remember mom making it. The meats are in perfect balance and the vegetables smell at the peak of freshness," said Naruto with a happy sigh before picking up some chopsticks and breaking them in half. "Itadakimasu!" he said before taking his first bite of the broth soaked noodles. "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM." Naruto's tails started waving happily as he savored that first bite. "Perfect temperature on the broth, the meat has just the right amount of texture, the vegetables have either soaked just long enough or were just put in, and the spices have mixed in just the right way…." Moaned the blonde with a huge smile once he swallowed his first taste of heaven.

"Is he having a religious awakening from ramen?" Akira whispered to Ryeka, only to be bopped on the head by Kimiko.

"Do not insult the divine ramen," declared the Inu miko.

"Is it just me, or is Naruto taking longer than usual to eat that ramen?" asked Ryeka after a few seconds of watching Naruto eat.

"Of course he is," said Kimiko as she shook her head at the heathens that knew not the glory that was ramen. "You heard him, that's a recipe his mom doesn't make very often. You don't rush something like that."

Naruto slowly set his first empty bowl down with the sigh of one who is perfectly content with their life. "Hinata-chan, if there was ever any doubt in my mind that you and me were destined to be together, that just proves it wrong," he said before pulling her into a hug. The Hyuuga heiress blushed, mainly from all the strangers staring at them from around the cafeteria.

"Naruto-kun, aren't you going to eat the rest of your ramen?" asked Hinata.

Naruto's face gained a small blush as he said, "I was kind of hoping you would feed me the next one."

Hinata blinked before giggling and picking up the chopsticks. "Well, since you're working so hard," she said as she picked up a bite of noodles and meat to feed to Naruto.

"Best meal ever!" said Naruto with a grin and a peace sign after the first bite. Many of the watching soldiers wished they had a cute girl friend that would feed them a special meal she cooked just for them while Ranma was shuddering at the memory of the times he'd had to eat Akane's horrible experiments in cooking.

(0o0o0)

"Thank god we're done with the suit, I feel like I'm going to explode," said Naruto as he walked out of the work room with Jiraiya several hours later. The Gama-sennin had decided to use a shadow clone to speed up the work on the suit and it was with relief that the two were finished.

"Well, go burn it off, otherwise you won't be able to sleep," said Jiraiya before groaning.

"What's wrong?" asked Naruto.

"You're going to be infiltrating a boat… in the middle of the ocean… to get to an island," said Jiraiya.

"You mean we have to do the suit for Naruko as well?" yelled Naruto, causing passing airmen to stumble at the volume the kitsune produced.

"Yeah, afraid so. Better summon Hoshiko tomorrow since we'll need her help to work in that switching seal on the array," said Jiraiya with a groan. "Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go get something with a high alcohol content to ease my nerves." The white haired sage trotted off towards the cafeteria, leaving an antsy Naruto on his own before the blonde ran off to blow off his excess energy. Neither one noticed the blue haired figure listening in around the corner from them.

(0o0o0)

"Ugh, note to self, do not ever take on the entire Shuffle Alliance at once," said Naruto as he shuffled through the halls of the base to his assigned room. He'd asked Domon and the others to help him burn off some energy and the group had agreed. Naruto had thought he could handle them but learned very quickly that even though he'd seen most of their moves, working as a team the Shuffle Alliance was practically unbeatable. "I'm pretty sure those six could give Kakashi-sensei a work out, probably Dad as well," said the blonde as he opened the door to his room, only to blink as he saw Hinata sitting on his bed. "Hinata-chan?" he asked.

"I overheard you talking with Jiraiya-sama, I went to mix some herbal balm for your muscles and was waiting here to give you a massage," said Hinata with a smile.

"That's nice," mumbled Naruto as he stumbled into the room and collapsed on the bed face down.

"Naruto-kun, you need to remove your clothes," Hinata said.

"Tired," muttered Naruto into the pillow.

Hinata sighed and started removing Naruto's shoes, muttering about crazy kitsune. Naruto's pants were easy to yank off, but Hinata had to roll him over onto his back to get at the zipper of his jacket. As soon as Naruto's back was on the bed, she managed to get the jacket off only to have Naruto's tails grab her and pull her into his grasp. "Naruto-kun!" squealed Hinata, only to get a light nuzzle from the fox boy as his breathing steadied. Hinata quickly found that Naruto was not letting her go and appeared determined to use her as a teddy bear for the night. "Naruto-kun, as much as I appreciate the cuddle time, you can't go to sleep that tense," said Hinata. Naruto didn't reply, causing Hinata to sigh. "Ok, I tried the easy route," she said before wiggling one hand free and jabbing a certain chakra point. Naruto's eyes snapped open as he felt a painful rush of energy through his body.

"Gwaaaahhh!" exclaimed the blonde as he tumbled out of the bed.

"I hope you learned your lesson," said Hinata as she climbed out of the bed and looked down at Naruto. "Now get that shirt off so I can take care of your muscles!"

"Hai Hinata-chan," said the blonde as he did as ordered. "Just so you know, you'll have to do this for Naruko tomorrow night as well."

Hinata nodded. "I overheard Jiraiya-sensei and you talking after you finished the suit. I'd be happy to do this for Naruko-chan tomorrow. And once this is all over I still owe you that day of being your maid." Naruto's fare gained a faint red tint at the thought of Hinata in a maid outfit. "Now lie still and let me ease those muscles."

"Please don't be mad if I fall asleep Hinata-chan, my mind and body are exhausted," said Naruto as he lay down on the bed.

Hinata smiled and started kneading the tense muscles in Naruto's back, enjoying the small yips of contentment that Naruto made as her chakra dug into the knots and loosened them.

(0o0o0)

"I'm so glad we have the male version of the suit to work with as a guideline," said Naruko the next morning as Hoshiko started painting the seals on her bodysuit. The kitsune maid had already added the clothes swapping seal to the original garment and was now taking care of Naruko's suit since the younger vixen's suit had to be done from scratch due to her having a different body structure from Naruto.

"This is truly a work of art you did with Jiraiya-san, Naruto-sama," said Hoshiko.

Naruko's eyes glazed over for a moment before she smiled. "He says thanks," the vixen relayed her twin's mental comment. "But I think I have it worse, my skin is more sensitive than his. I'm definitely going to need a massage from Hinata-chan tonight!"

"Have you given any thought about how you're going to infiltrate the ship?" Hinata asked as she entered the room carrying a pair of tactical vests with one sized to fit Naruko and the other for Naruto. The bluette started packing the various supplies the kitsune would need once they got to Mejiro's island.

"Oh yeah, we're going to exploit the one major weakness of the crew," said Naruko with a smirk.

(0o0o0)

It was a beautiful summer day, so it was not too surprising to find a small luxury yacht out in the waters outside Tokyo Bay. What was surprising was the large number of attractive women lounging around on the boat's upper deck, eating, drinking, and playing games. The side of the boat bore a banner proclaiming Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Psi Beta Omega Chapter Tokyo (Actual sorority in Japan!) Retreat. The only hint there might be trouble was a pair of flags run up the mast with a square above a ball. The supply ship Gingitsune Kisaki (Silver Fox Empress) responded to the international distress signal and slowed to a stop next to the smaller boat.

"You ladies need a hand?" one of the deck hands asked with a grin as he looked down at the group of beautiful women occupying the smaller boat.

A tall blonde in a bright orange bikini grinned and waved at the group of sailors gathering at the railings. "Yeah, there was a leak in our tank," she said. "And when we were trying to radio the coast guard our friend tripped in her panic and smashed the radio."

"I said I was sorry!" wailed a second blonde with her hair up in an odango style as she stopped scarfing down a plate of food. Despite her rapid eating, not a bit of food was visible on her white one piece swim suit.

"Oh put a sock in it meat ball head!" growled a black haired girl in a white one piece with a red sarong around her waist.

"Yeah Usagi-chan, mistakes happen," said a sandy haired blonde from where she was cuddling with an aquamarine haired woman on a lounge chair.

A tall brunette carrying a plate of freshly grilled fish from the yacht's galley deftly held her burden out of arm's reach of the bun headed blonde as she said, "Wait your turn Usagi, you're already on your third plate!"

"But your food tastes so good Mako-chan!" exclaimed Usagi.

A green haired woman with dark skin exited the yacht's cabin with a smile of relief on her face. "Thank you for stopping gentlemen. None of us have the skill to jury rig what's left of our radio and make a call for help," she said as she adjusted white shirt she was wearing over a dark purple bikini.

A busty red head in a black one piece bathing suit fluttered her eyelashes at the men grinning down at them. "I'm sure these big strong men would be happy to take a quick look at the radio or give us some gas to get back to shore," she said as she flipped her long ponytail back over her shoulder.

Needless to say, even if their captain would have objected after seeing the women, the crew was eager to help and quickly launched a small boat to bring their technician over to tinker with the radio while several of the deck hands patched up the fuel tank and refilled it for the women, who all made appreciative comments. It was with heavy hearts that the good Samaritans headed back to their own ship while the women waved good bye and blew kisses of thanks before they started heading back towards the mainland.

(0o0o0)

As soon as the larger boat was out of sight, the red head dashed to the side of the boat and threw up over the railing. "Ugh, I could feel their lust auras," gasped Ranma-chan as she wiped her mouth after rinsing it out with a cup of water.

Rei nodded while rubbing her arms along her arms. "Yeah, and that boat holds an aura of anger, pain, and fear," said the beautiful miko.

"We are going to help wipe that hive of scum and villainy off the face of the planet, right?" asked Minako as she looked at Usagi.

The odango haired woman nodded as she glanced back in the direction of the large boat. "Yes, as soon as Naruto drops the barrier we'll join the assault. We still owe him for attacking during our first meeting," she said.

Setsuna nodded. "Naruko was already on her way to their ship when I came out. Good distraction ladies, they never had a chance to spot her swimming over," said the Senshi of Pluto. "Now let's pull up the banner and return Michiru's boat to its dock."

(0o0o0)

Naruko slowly worked her way along the bottom of the Gingitsune Kisaki using chakra on her hands and feet to keep her stuck to the keel of the boat. "Man, this helmet works great!" she said with a grin as the mask she was wearing provided her with fresh air to breathe. Ryeka had designed it with help from Jiraiya for seals to convert the water the mask took in to air based on the mask of the infamous Sanshōuo no Hanzō (Hanzō of the Salamander) from Amegakure. Naruko's mask was more curved and smooth looking, allowing for a more streamlined profile in the water as well as having protective coverings for her ears. "And nobody will ever know I'm here," said the kitsune with a grin as she slowly started crawling up the side of the keel.

(0o0o0)

One of the deckhands was enjoying a cigarette when he heard a small thump as if something had landed on the deck of the ship. Making his way there, he grimaced as he found a coil of rope had slipped free and landed on the deck. Knowing the captain would throw a fit, the man started coiling the rope back up, not noticing the shadow slipping over the railing of the ship and into the interior through the door he'd just left.

(0o0o0)

"Oh come on, I don't have much time," Naruko muttered to herself as she clung to the ceiling in a dark corner outside the ship's galley. She'd sealed her helmet away once she got out of the water and was now waiting for a member of the crew to go off duty until they reached the island and then hide in their room so it wouldn't be obvious that there was a spare chakra signature on the boat as it passed through the barrier. Currently there were several men in the galley, but none of them seemed eager to leave despite having finished eating.

Finally, one of the crew members stood up and Naruko grinned at the sight of his flushed face and stumbling gait. Clearly drunk, the man stumbled out of the galley and towards his berth, never noticing Naruko slinking along the ceiling above him with a light genjutsu keeping her from being seen by his more alert shipmates. Naruko grinned as the man reached a berth and pawed at a space a foot to the side of the handle for a bit before finally grasping it and opening to door only to be driven out by a punch in the gut from the occupant of the room. Now groaning with pain, the drunk stumbled to his real berth and was asleep as soon as his head hit the bed. Naruko placed a genjutsu on him to ensure he would sleep and hid herself in the small closet built into the room before tapping a button beneath the small screen of the computer-like watch she was wearing before slipping into a meditative trance to keep her energy calm.

(0o0o0)

"Got a signal from Naruko, she's hidden onboard the boat," said Washu with a grin before speaking into a microphone that projected her voice through the base. "Attention everyone, the fox has breached the chicken coop." The various groups waiting to make the raid on Mejiro's island all sprung into action as soon as Washu's voice faded. Martial artists, youkai, magical girls, and soldiers all rapidly grabbed any gear they needed and hurried to get in a quick last meal to keep their energy up.

(0o0o0)

Naruko practically jumped as she felt a wave of foul chakra run over her as she sat meditating in the closet. Realizing it had to be the barrier, the blond vixen made sure she had several kunai in easy reach in case she had to fight her way out in the narrow corridors that wouldn't leave room for Nenshousaiga. However, the minutes ticked by and she didn't sense any of the crew gathering in preparation for an attack. Releasing a breath she didn't realize she was holding, the vixen tapped the button on the computer watch again.

(0o0o0)

"She's past the barrier!" said Washu with a grin.

(0o0o0)

Naruko's meditation was broken for a second time as a shudder ran through the ship. Inertia kept the vessel moving forward even as the propeller worked in reverse to bring the ship to a halt at the dock on Mejiro's island. Hearing her temporary roommate stumble out of his bed with a groan and mumble about the bathroom before the door opened and closed, Naruko waited a few minutes before slipping out and back to the ceiling. It was easy to gain access to the outside of the ship via an open window and the blond vixen made her way back down to hide on the bottom keel again with her breathing mask on. It was a simple matter to stay hidden in the deep water as the ship was unloaded since the men were concentrating on getting the job done and then moving the supplies to a storage facility. Naruko had to hand it to them, Mejiro's soldiers were efficient and she only had to wait an hour before the dock was deserted as the men headed to their barracks. Slowly raising her head out of the water, the blond vixen caught sight of a security camera above the door of the closest warehouse before she slipped back underwater and hid under the dock. Forming a hand sign, there was a small puff of smoke underneath the dock before a rat scurried up the dock supports and towards the warehouse.

(0o0o0)

"I guess they're depending on their barrier so much they aren't taking care of things like cameras," said Naruko an hour later. Using a combination of Henge, timing, and genjutsu, the blond had slipped past all the cameras she could see and made her way to where she could finally see a large orb resting in the exact center of the island. "Time to get cracking," said the kitsune hanyou as she flexed her fingers.

(0o0o0)

"It's much too quiet," said Mejiro as she looked out her office window from the plush office chair behind a massive and imposing desk. "I basically threw a gauntlet at him and our cousin still hasn't shown up."

The face of an orange haired kitsune she was video chatting with waved his hand in a dismissive fashion. "Sister, he's a NINJA. They're SNEAKY. For all you know he's in the roof panels above you after silently killing all your men and ready to assassinate you," said the male kitsune with a smirk.

"Hanzo, this isn't one of your little games," growled Mejiro.

"How's the super fighter coming?" asked Hanzo with a smirk as he brought a stick of Pocky to his mouth.

"The data input is over and virtual REM training is going, even though we weren't able to fluidly combine the unarmed and martial styles into one person and had to use two instead and they'll be ready for battle in an hour," replied Mejiro. "I'm sure you'll be watching the whole thing live?"

Hanzo adjusted the wire frame glasses he was wearing so the lenses glinted and obscured his eyes. "Definitely, this should be just like one of those final bosses in the video games who steal the moves of every possible fighter in the roster. But how are you going to incorporate the various weapon techniques when each style uses a different weapon?"

Mejiro clicked a couple of files from her desktop and copied them to the chat window. "I've been having my people work on a shape shifting metal for multi role vehicles and weapons. Once you program a shape into the metal, it can assume it any time as long as it has enough mass to do so. We've already programmed a basic sword, glaive, spear, and staff forms for the soldier to demonstrate and our prototype for a motorcycle jet ski vehicle is ready for some tests."

Hanzo was already reading over the documents he'd received and nodding. "Very impressive," he said.

Any further conversation was cut off as a massive explosion rocked the island. A beam of youki shot up from the center and when it reached the barrier around the island the barrier became visible before fading away.

"What the hell was that?" Mejiro yelled before she jabbed a finger at a blinking red button. "Security, give me the situation."

"Sister, someone set you up the bomb," said Hanzo with a grin as he struggled to keep a straight face. "War is beginning!"

"Not now Hanzo!" yelled Mejiro, only to realize that her sibling was taking this as an invitation to continue his joke.

"Main screen turn on!" yelled Hanzo before he couldn't hold back his laughter and fell off his chair with a loud thump. "ROTFLMAO! You have no chance to survive, make your time!" he exclaimed from below the view of his web cam.

"SHUT UP!" screamed Mejiro.

"FOR GREAT JUSTICE!" yelled Hanzo as his hand shot up into the camera's view with a backwards peace sign before Mejiro closed the chat.

"Ma'am, we've detected a fluctuation in the barrier gem's field, troops responding now!" said the head of security.

(0o0o0)

"You guys aren't even making me break a sweat," said Naruto with a sigh as he kicked out the knee cap on one of the soldiers who'd rushed to investigate the scene of ten explosive tags going off at once. Naruko had actually had enough time to pull out a thermos of hot water and make the switch back to Naruto before the first soldier arrived. There were currently twenty four moaning men littered around the clearing holding the gem and each of them would be in the hospital for a week. "I haven't even pulled out any toys," said the blonde with a sigh as he grabbed a pistol from a soldier and crushed it in his hands before chucking the lump of metal at its owner and sending him to the ground unconscious with a large bruise on his forehead.

"Shut it, you cocky little bastard!" yelled a soldier across the clearing from Naruto who took aim with a rifle and fired several bullets at the blonde. Naruto vanished in a Shunshin and reappeared driving his knee into the man's stomach before using the rifle like a baseball bat to make sure he stayed down.

"Pathetic," said Naruto with a sigh before tossing a kunai to knock a grenade back at the thrower, whose eyes widened for the split second he had before the explosive went off a few feet from him and blasted him back into the trees surrounding the clearing.

(0o0o0)

"I want all our special troops at the barrier clearing NOW!" Mejiro roared as her attendants finished tying a silver kimono fit for a daimyo in her quarters. The silver vixen was speaking into a headset and listening to updates from a sniper giving her eyes on the battle. "Send in the shock troops!"

(0o0o0)

"Is this the best you guys have to offer?" Naruto asked as he finished piling up the men he had defeated. His answer was the crunch of boots a minute later as a squad of men in camouflage gear broke through the tree line. They wore Kevlar vests over their uniforms and each carried a tonfa like stick with two prongs jutting out of the end that sparked. "Second wave, here I come!" said Naruto before he charged the men. The first soldier the blonde reached stabbed at the boy with his weapon, only to have Naruto duck under the attack and elbow him in the face. "I'll be taking this," said Naruto as he twirled the shock stick. "Not bad, let's see how I do with this."

The soldier Naruto had disarmed made the mistake of trying to take his weapon back. Naruto wasn't an expert in tonfa by any means, but Ranma had made sure his students knew how to use all basic weapons to better defend against them. Naruto twirled the shock stick out of the soldier's grasp and jabbed the man in the gut with the prongs, causing him to let out a scream as electricity coursed through his body before he slumped to the ground out cold. "Now that was a shocking experience," said Naruto with a grin before diving into the squad of troopers even as he pumped his chakra into his new toy.

(0o0o0)

Hanzo's eyes widened as he watched a lightning bolt erupt from the shock stick Naruto held. "Holy...what the hell can my cousin do to produce that kind of effect?" demanded the orange haired kitsune as he stared at his computer monitor in awe.

(0o0o0)

"Not as good as Kakashi-sensei's Raikiri, but I think it matches Chidori," said Naruto as he pulled his stolen stun stick back from giving a soldier a shock in the back. The grown men were completely bewildered by their inability to hit the young kitsune hanyou and it showed as they were starting to panic and get sloppy. Grabbing a second dropped stun stick, Naruto became a whirlwind of electricity as he pummeled the rest of the group into the ground. "I'm shocked that you guys can't beat a teenager, what kind of super mercenaries are you?" taunted Naruto.

(0o0o0)

"What do you mean he stole their weapons and took them down?" demanded Mejiro as she grabbed a naginata from its place on the wall and marched out of her quarters. "Burn team, get in there and roast him alive!"

(0o0o0)

Naruto had just finished piling his defeated enemies into a pile of shock troops and regular soldiers when he heard the sound of something heavy moving through the forest all around him. "Third wave," let's see what you've got!" said Naruto with a grin that faded slightly as five large men stomped out of the trees. Each towered over Naruto and carried a three pronged weapon that smelled of ozone to Naruto. "More electric attacks?" asked Naruto only to see all five men level their weapons at him and send a stream of gas between the prongs that ignited with a spark from between the prongs and sent a roaring jet of flame at Naruto. The boy was engulfed in the small inferno of five fire streams and the men chuckled as they kept up the flames before cutting off the gas feed and firing the grenade launcher on the side of the massive flame throwers. Five grenades went into the raging inferno and one explosion later Naruto's broken body came flying out.

"Burn team leader here, target has been neutralized," said one of the men only to hear the laughter of one of his comrades suddenly cut off with a wet gurgle. Spinning around, he saw a very annoyed Naruto standing over his fallen comrade who had a kunai jabbed into his throat.

"Idiots, I'm fire proof," said Naruto with a growl before he sprang forward, bouncing from man to man. "Oooh, this looks important," said Naruto as he latched onto the commander's back and yanked at a hose connecting a tank to the man's flamethrower. Before the blonde could do any more damage, the man managed to smack Naruto away with his flamethrower.

"Everyone keep your distance!" yelled the commander as he stumbled away from Naruto before slamming his weapon into the ground and firing a concussive blast that staggered Naruto. The remaining three soldiers used the moment of Naruto's disorientation to box him in a triangle of flame.

"Fry you little brat!" yelled one of the soldiers, only to have Naruto grin.

"You guys first," he said as he formed a hand seal. The explosive tags he'd planted on the tank each man was carrying on his back glowed for a moment before detonating. Naruto became a blur as he stole each man's weapon and detonated all five with an explosive tag.

(0o0o0)

"Mr. Mundy, you are clear to take him out," said Mejiro with a growl.

(0o0o0)

"Yeah, might be a bit of a problem there Sheila, the kid knows how to keep me from drawing a bead on him and is using cover to his advantage," said the sniper as he attempted to keep his sights on Naruto only for the fox boy to continuously move in random directions or keep the body of one of his defeated foes in between them. "Crikey, this little bugger is strong!" he exclaimed as he witnessed Naruto pick up one of the flame troopers, who must have been about twice his size, with no apparent effort.

(0o0o0)

"That's it, I don't care who does it, someone take him out!" Mejiro roared into her headset.

(0o0o0)

"Bored now," said Naruto after he had finished piling the flame crew into a third pile. Incidentally, all three piles Naruto had made formed a wall he was able to use to keep the sniper he'd sensed from drawing a bead on him. "Hey, Sniper-san, tell my cousin if she doesn't send some more toys I'll be coming after her!" yelled Naruto as he idly flipped a kunai up and down in his hand.

"You should worry more about yourself Reynard," said a voice from thin air just as Naruto's danger sense started screaming at him. Rolling to the side, Naruto felt a blade cutting through the air where he had just been before a shimmering human form appeared.

"Invisible assassin, now this is interesting," said Naruto with a grin as he pulled a second kunai and settled into a defensive stance.

The shimmering faded out to reveal a tall man in a red suit and ski mask. "You are a very strange young man little Reynard," said the man in a thick French accent as he twirled the butterfly knife he was holding.

"Says the guy who looks like he's going to rob a bank," countered Naruto before making a series of rapid slashes at his opponent who hopped backwards to easily avoid the attacks before counter attacking with a wide swipe that would have slashed Naruto's throat if he hadn't ducked under the blow and swept the man's legs out from under him. The red clad man turned his fall into a tumble away from the blonde kitsune and pulled a revolver engraved with a nude woman from his pocket before firing several shots at Naruto to force him back with a series of back flips.

"You certainly are a nimble little one," said the man as he aimed at Naruto, who had landed in a crouch from his dodge.

"And full of surprises," said Naruto as he suddenly dashed forward, using one of his kunai to force the revolver off target so the shot missed him before making several attacks with the free knife.

The red clad man managed to parry each of Naruto's jabs before kneeing the blonde in the chest and going for a backstab as he doubled over from the sudden lack of air in his lungs. The knife plunged into Naruto's back and the man had a moment of satisfaction before the blonde burst into a spray of water and a note drifted down into his hand that showed Naruto's face sticking his tongue out. "Cheeky little brat, reminds me of another one I know," said the man before he pulled a cigarette case from his jacket pocket and lit one.

(0o0o0)

A young man in a t-shirt and baseball hat let out a big sneeze. "Some hot babe must be talking about me," he said with a grin.

(0o0o0)

Naruto grinned; it hadn't been easy to switch with a water clone when his attacker briefly took his eyes off him while recovering from the blonde's leg sweep. The blonde was now making his way towards the castle at the center of the island to find his cousin and finish her off. He'd unsealed Nenshousaiga from its hiding place in his vest and had it strapped to his back for a quick draw. Currently, he was approaching the path leading to the mountain top castle and had managed to avoid the numerous patrols looking for him. The start of the path was guarded by a small fortress and Naruto's eyes caught the glint of sunlight on metal just before he threw himself to the side to avoid a spray of bullets from several men firing from the top of the fort. "Time for some demolition," said Naruto as he drew ten kunai with explosive tags from his supply pouch before hurling them towards the fort and forming hand signs. "Fūton: Shinkūjin (Wind Style: Vacuum Blade)!" yelled Naruto before he breathed out a gust of wind that accelerated the kunai to the speed of a bullet. The knives punched into the fort and a second later the tags detonated, sending pieces of the fort flying and tossing the men on the roof into the surrounding area.

(0o0o0)

"Now that was a good explosion!" yelled a dark skinned man with an eye patch as he took a swig from a whiskey bottle. "The laddie has got skill!"

(0o0o0)

Charging up the newly opened path, Naruto tore through a group of soldiers that had been hurrying to reinforce the fort. Rounding a bend of the path, Naruto found himself staring at a bunch of turrets swiveled to aim at him with machine guns and rocket launchers. "Oh hell," said Naruto.

(0o0o0)

"Looks like your sentries caught him off guard Conagher," said a man with a construction worker helmet on his head to a second man with the same headgear who was watching a video feed of the part of the path Naruto was on while tapping a large wrench into his hand.

"Nope, the boy's just playing out there, look at how he's dodging all those rockets and bullets to make them hit my sentries," said the man in a thick Texas drawl. "The kid's good, he's managing to keep track of each sentry and avoid its attacks even with all the explosions and bullets."

(0o0o0)

"What a rush!" yelled Naruto as he kicked a rocket back towards the sentry that fired it while avoiding machine gun fire from the rest. Leaping up into the air, Naruto became a spinning blur as he formed hand signs. "Katon: Housenka (Mythical Fire Flower) no jutsu!" roared Naruto as he sent fireballs streaking towards each sentry. The fireballs ignited each turret's ammo and caused them to erupt in explosions as Naruto made a three point landing with one hand on the ground before dashing up the scrap filled path.

(0o0o0)

"Someone stop him!" Mejiro yelled.

(0o0o0)

Naruto grinned as he saw the castle gate up ahead of him and an orb of chakra started spinning in his hand. "Rasengan!" roared Naruto as he leapt into the air and slammed the chakra sphere into the gate, causing the two wooden doors to go flying into the castle courtyard. Landing in the middle of the courtyard, Naruto took in the large number of soldiers aiming rifles and other weapons at him and grinned as he saw Mejiro staring down at him from a balcony across the courtyard from him.

"All units, open fire!" said Mejiro with a smirk. Rockets, bullets, and grenades rained down on Naruto, enveloping him in a dust cloud that hid him from sight. After a solid minute of firing, Mejiro raised her hand and all the soldiers stopped firing. The dust cloud persisted for a moment before fading away to reveal Naruto standing safe and sound inside a barrier of water with his hands in the tiger hand seal.

"Suiton: Suijinheki (Water Style: Water Encampment Wall)!" said Naruto with a grin before bringing his hands apart with a cry of, "Mizudeppo (Water Gun)!" that sent the water wall lashing out as bullets of water that struck every soldier and knocked them down. Naruto crouched and leapt towards Mejiro with Nenshousaiga drawn and swung it to cut her down even as she stumbled backwards in shock.

Mejiro suddenly tossed a green sphere at Naruto and it exploded in his face, enveloping him in a cloud of thick green smoke that reeked of skunk even as a burst of sound hit Naruto's ears. With two of his primary senses suddenly overloaded, Naruto collapsed to the ground with one of his hands landing right on Mejiro's shoes as Mejiro grinned at him, a skin tight energy field protecting her from the powerful stench and smell. "Take him to the field where we've got the Ultimate Fighters demonstration ready," said Mejiro. "He'll make a perfect showcase of their fighting abilities."

"Mamn, he took out a good part of our rookie unit, we'll need some time before they're ready to take to the field," said one of her assistants.

"How many permanent losses did we suffer in personal?" asked Mejiro as some soldiers dragged Naruto away.

"One scorcher unit member and all advanced weapons the target encountered," said the man as he consulted a pda.

"Good, tell the elites to stand down at the factory and barracks, I'll need them here in case his friends manage to find a way inside the barrier," said Mejiro.

(0o0o0)

Naruto regained consciousness in a small room with no apparent way out and found himself seated in a chair facing a television screen. The screen lit up and Mejiro's smirking face stared out of it at him. "Hello cousin, thank you so much for volunteering to aid in the demonstration of my new Ultimate Fighters. Using the data I gathered from all those fighters in the tournament to crush you will be an excellent display of their capabilities to my customers," said the Nogitsune before the monitor shut off and left Naruto alone in the room.

"Ugh, feels like I tried to out drink Gamabunta," said Naruto as he rubbed his head. Seeing Nenshousaiga sitting on a low table with the rest of his gear, Naruto quickly did a few stretches and popped a soldier pill in his mouth to boost his chakra as he waited for something to happen. "I'll play her game for now, but she'll be sorry she didn't kill me when she had the chance," said Naruto as he made sure his tactical vest and supply pouches were secure.

(0o0o0)

Mejiro stood in front of a silver flame emblem with several cameras focused on her, knowing that her encrypted broadcast would be reaching terrorist leaders and warlords around the world. "Everyone, I present to you the Ultimate Fighters," said the vixen as a trap door on the stage opened and a lift rose up to reveal a pair of men. One looked like the poster boy for a muscle magazine while the other was dressed in silver knight armor. "We offer two models, the martial artist suitable for a bodyguard and assassin role and a weapon user good for an elite guard. Both men know a variety of styles and will be demonstrating them as they hunt down their target." Footage of Naruto's fights on the island, including his feats of strength, was shown on a screen beside Mejiro to familiarize her viewers with the blonde kitsune. "Gentlemen, begin the hunt," said Mejiro with a grin as the two fighters leapt off the stage and into the valley set up for the demonstration. As soon as they were in the valley, a barrier sprang up around the edge, making it impossible for Naruto to sneak out and avoid his hunters.

(0o0o0)

Naruto grimaced as he made his way through the valley, sticking to the forest whenever he could. A door had opened in his small prison and he'd left a few presents behind for the first enemy to enter it. He could feel two big energy signatures moving through the valley and his instincts screamed that he was being hunted. "Time to make the predator into the prey," said Naruto with a grin.

(0o0o0)

The two men were twins, trained to fight for a Yakuza boss from a young age and serve as his enforcers. The knight Jin favored weapons and armor to protect himself from them while Jun the martial artist felt using a weapon made him weak and there was no need for one when he could punch through steel plating. Mejiro had found the Yazkuza trying to muscle in on one of her businesses and personally eliminated him and taken his men for her own.

"Come brother, we need to find him quickly before he can set up any traps," said Jun as he leapt to the top of a tree to see if he could spot any signs of Naruto.

Jin grunted as he trudged along on the ground, his armor clanking with every move. "Don't worry Jun, he can't get through the barrier the Mistress placed around the valley," said the knight. "We'll be able to hunt him down and rip him apart."

A sudden mist cut off further discussion and both brothers went on guard against a sneak attack as it thickened into fog. "This is it? A walking tin can and a muscle model?" asked Naruto's voice as it echoed through the fog. "My cousin is seriously underestimating me even after seeing me tear through all her troops?"

"Come out and die with some dignity boy, don't hide behind cheap tricks," said Jin as he swung his sword through the fog.

"Number one," said Naruto as he suddenly appeared crouched on Jin's shoulder. "Ninja, I'm all about the sneaky!" The blonde brought Nenshousaiga's hilt down on Jin's head, making his helmet ring from the impact before the blonde leapt away from the knight to avoid the ki blast Jun shot at him.

"Don't look down on us!" yelled the martial artist as he launched several of Akira's Head Slicers at Naruto following up by an attempt at a Chain Yanker to pull the Blonde close. The blonde easily evaded each of the projectiles and ducked under the Ki rope.

"Number two, you guys have only had a week at most to go through those moves, you can't just fire them off as easily as someone who mastered them through hard training," said Naruto as he appeared inside Jun's guard and flipped the martial artist over his shoulder and into the ground. "You also don't know the weaknesses of the moves like they do. Akira's Head Slicer is powerful, but easy to dodge if you know it's coming. You're also only using the special moves, not the basics that build up to them. You're over specialized and your basic techniques while good are way below the level of opponents I'm training to face."

"Blade Beam!" roared Jin as he swung his sword down at the ground to send a giant energy wave at Naruto, only for the fox boy to whip out Nenshousaiga and slash the wave in half.

"I also got to see all those techniques in action and figure out counters in case I had to face them later on," Naruto continued as he back kicked Jun as he tried to strike the fox boy back with Ranko's Haku Dato Shin Shō (Strike of the Spitting White Snake) before turning to confront the martial artist. "You're both running on your instincts and having to choose which move you use takes long enough I can counter." Naruto easily pushed aside Jun's follow up Dokuja Tanketsu Shō (Deadly Snake-Pit Probing Palm) as the martial artist recovered and tried for a strike from his crouching position. Naruto blinked as Jin's sword became a spear and the blonde was forced to dodge Thyme's lighting spear. "You, Mister Tin Can, are too big and slow in that armor to make use of the more high speed moves in the weapon styles while Mister Muscles here is not used to moving his internal energy in such exotic ways." Naruto easily evaded a copied Gentle Fist attack and brought his elbow down on Jun's wrist as a weak chakra beam sprang up from his palm before fading out. "You're not a girl, so Hinata-chan's personal style isn't suited to you, she's way more flexible than you." Nenshousaiga parried Aerith Strife's Braver attack and a blast of wind chakra neutralized the following whirlwind created by her Finishing Touch that Jin launched in an attempt to catch the fox boy off guard. "You also can't seem to switch weapon users on the fly; you had to go with Aerith's attack even after I blocked the first one."

"Die you brat!" roared Jun as he charged in with Shizuka's Hardliner Gale Fist. Naruto countered with a Rasengan to the man's gut and sent him flying into the trees before catching Jin's sword as the knight swing it while covered in a field of flame and wind.

"Really? Attacking me with my Kuuchuuhottokattohou (Hot Cutting Method)?" asked Naruto. "It's my own blade and I know its every swing!" The fox boy grunted and twisted, shattering the fake Nenshousaiga before kicking Jin away from him while sheathing Nenshousaiga. "Since you guys know so many of my finishing moves, here's a new one!" yelled Naruto as wind and lightning started gathering in his hand. "I've got to thank that first bunch with the shock sticks, synching with their weapons let me figure out how to shape the lighting perfectly into my sensei's sole original technique." The crackle of lighting combined with the howl of wind to create the sound of a storm as lighting and wind formed around Naruto's hands. "The Raikiri that can cut through a bolt of lightning augmented by sharp wind chakra, Arashikiri (Storm Blade)!" yelled Naruto as he charged towards Jin and drove the jutsu into the thick armor over his chest. A burst of light and a scream of pain before the smell of cooked meat filled the clearing as Naruto pulled his hand from Jin with a grunt as the man fell face first on the ground with a smoking hole punched through his armor and body.

"Brother!" yelled Jun as he lunged for Naruto, aiming for a killing blow. Naruto easily parried the sloppy rage-fueled attack and brought his claws down as fox fire flared around them.

"Kasei Tsume (Force of Flame Claw)!" roared Naruto as his attack shredded Jun's defense and burnt the martial artist up. "You guys weren't masters of any of those techniques, using them is an insult to the people who have put blood, sweat, and tears into mastering those moves!" growled Naruto.

(0o0o0)

Mejiro could only stare as what should have been her strongest warriors were made to look like raw beginners and killed with seemingly little effort by her cousin. "Inconceivable!" she gasped. "Warden Squad, get down there and capture the brat! All other soldiers gather in the main courtyard."

(0o0o0)

Naruto stepped away from the corpses of the two brothers and glared straight up. "I know you're watching this cousin, better wash your neck because I'm coming to take your head!" he yelled before darting towards the closest part of the barrier.

(0o0o0)

"Crikey, what a nasty little bugger, glad I didn't get near him," said Mundy the sniper as he watched the feed.

"Boy is fast, able to dodge bullet, strong to punch through steel," said a heavyset man with a thick Russian accent as he cleaned a large minigun.

"He detected my attack even when I was cloaked," said the red suited man Naruto had fought near the barrier stone. "He can switch from his sword to a knife on the fly and his techniques are well polished to allow for both power and speed."

"He trashed my sentries," said Conagher as he idly strummed a guitar.

"He knows his way around explosives," said the one eyed black man who'd witnessed Naruto detonating the fort. "I don't know how those tags he uses work, but he can take out a fortified location like that fort so easily and quickly when I'd need at least a day to figure out weak points and plant charges."

"The boss was right, his cousin is a regular force of nature," said a ball cap wearing man as he idly tapped a steel baseball bat against his leg. "He knows how to trash talk his opponent into being sloppy and can move like lightning when he needs to.

"Ach, I'd love to see what makes him tick!" exclaimed a man in a white lab coat. "I wish I could see how he stands up to the UBER system."

"Commander's orders were clear on that," said a soldier as he polished his entrenching tool. "Keep an eye on the kid and wait for the signal unless everything goes to hell."

There was a muffled grunt from a figure clad in an asbestos suit as they flicked a lighter on and off.

"Jah, I know our orders, and will obey, but the knowledge I could gain," said the lab coated man with a sigh.

(0o0o0)

Naruto stared at the barrier blocking his exit from the valley and assumed a battōjutsu stance. "Nankan Kuchikukan (Barrier Destroyer)!" yelled Naruto as he slashed at the point his nose told him the youki powering the barrier was weakest. The barrier held for a few seconds before shattering like glass. As Naruto stepped out of the valley he found himself facing a second squad of five large men in heavy armor. Each one had a large metal shield on their left arm while their right arm appeared have been cut off and replaced by a large bulky prosthetic with a pneumatic fist at the end that unfolded into a three fingered claw as Naruto watched.

"Warden Squad, capture and subdue!" yelled one of the men with a small silver flame on the chest of his armor.

One of the large men charged forward with his shield forward in a shoulder tackle. Naruto grunted as his arms snapped out and grabbed the shield while bracing his feet with chakra to keep himself from being bulled over. The man's piston claw shot towards Naruto in an attempt to grab his head. "Got you!" yelled the man as the claw closed over Naruto.

"You guys are really pissing me off," growled Naruto as his hands came up and grabbed the claw. With a grunt, the blonde tore the claw apart as his tails wrapped around the machine like arm. "SO GET OUT OF MY WAY!" roared Naruto as his tails ripped the mechanical arm off the man before smacking him with it.

The next man leapt into the air with a hiss that told Naruto his legs were also pneumatically enhanced to allow him to jump so high in heavy armor. The warden was going for a gravity assisted punch with his claw, only to have Naruto appear behind him and delivered a two fisted blow to the man's head that sent him plummeting to the ground. Naruto latched onto the warden's back with chakra and grinned as he found a pneumatic pressure tank. "You guys need to learn to stop leaving stuff like this where I can get to it," said Naruto as he jabbed a kunai into the tank and leapt clear, detonating the explosive note on the kunai a second later to turn the disabled warden into an impromptu missile that smashed into one of his allies and knocked the other warden on his back.

"You little bastard!" roared the only standing warden aside from the unit commander as he charged towards Naruto shield first.

"I already showed I could block that attack idiot," said Naruto with a sigh before the warden actually hurled the shield at the blonde. "Ok, that was unexpected," said Naruto as he threw himself into a slide to avoid the projectile and ended up right under the charging warden's feet. "Rasengan!" yelled Naruto as he slammed the sphere of spinning chakra into the man's lower body and sent him flying into the trees. "Just you and me left," said Naruto as he advanced on the commander while cracking his fists.

The warden who had been knocked over by his ally's body had by now regained his feet and charged Naruto, only to have the blonde spin around and slash him in half at the hip with a quickly drawn Nenshousaiga. "As I said, just the two of us left," said Naruto as the commander scrambled to keep the blonde away from him. Naruto's tails put a stop to that as they grabbed the man and slammed him into the ground several times before tossing him into the air. Naruto leapt up and latched onto his opponent's back while his tails bound the warden's limbs. "Ranran Inseki (Flaming Meteor)!" yelled Naruto as fox fire sprang up around him before he threw himself and the warden into a spin to superheat the flames. The warden screamed as his metal armor was turned into an oven just before they hit the ground, Naruto bouncing clear of the impact but the warden ending up buried in the dirt. Naruto pulled a bottle of water from the supply pouch Hinata had packed him and drained it dry before venting some of his frustration and crushing the bottle. A rumble from his stomach alerted Naruto he needed to take care of necessities and the blonde unsealed several rations Hinata had prepared for him by blending vegetables and meat together before baking them into a pastry skin for a small sandwich the blonde could devour easily and quickly. "Mmmm, these are pretty good, Hinata-chan needs to make these for a dinner," said Naruto after he bit into the first one and strolled out of the clearing that was littered with the dead and disabled wardens.

(0o0o0)

"Prepare my chopper for immediate departure," Mejiro growled into her headset as camera feeds from the warden squadron had shown Naruto tearing through them. The silver vixen knew she had only a few things that might be able to stand up to Naruto and one of them was near the chopper. "And get the Demolisher ready for combat!"

(0o0o0)

Naruto walked into the courtyard through the still demolished gate. "I'm taking you down Mejiro!" yelled Naruto, as he glared at his cousin back on her balcony with soldiers on the three sides of the courtyard facing him aiming their weapons at him.

"You and what army?" asked Mejiro, only for her eyes to widen as a fleet of helicopters rose into view above the castle wall from where they'd been flying low near the sea and then the tree tops to get close undetected.

"That army!" said Naruto as the doors of the helicopters opened to allow his friends, teachers, JSDF troops, US airmen, and the Sailor Senshi to pile out and form up along the walls of the castle.

"Impossible, how did they get so close undetected?" demanded Mejiro.

"Did you forget that giant explosion at the barrier gem?" asked Naruto in a tone that indicated he was talking to a child. "I was there for an hour before that explosion. I modified the seal on the gem to make it contain your forces while letting my allies through. Then I just had to keep your attention on me so you'd never spot them coming. Washu-sensei was able to mask them from your radar, so your men never saw them. It was real clever for you to leave some holes in your defenses that were just enough to let me in if I looked close enough, but you underestimated my knowledge of seals, threw your weakest troops at me to keep your elites fresh, and also kept underestimating me since I'm not a full kitsune."

"Mejiro, you have violated numerous international laws and treaties and proven to be an ally to terrorists. Surrender now and you may get off light," said Guile.

"Kill them!" yelled Mejiro in outrage. Gunfire shot towards the group only to be deflected by a barrier Ayeka, Ryeka, Sailor Saturn, Kagome, and Kimiko threw up by combining their powers. The return fire of ki blasts, bullets, magical attacks, and youkai attacks devastated Mejiro's troops, allowing the allies to split up to cover the courtyard. The Senshi took one side, their speed and strength combined with their team work allowing them to tear through the soldiers and leave them encased in flames, ice, or lying on the ground from the other magical attacks filling the air. The other side was covered by the various senseis. Ranma and Akane became a devastating combo as they tore through the soldiers, breaking weapons and limbs while flinging ki blasts at anyone aiming a gun at them. Inuyasha was firing off the Kaze no Kizu (Wound of the Wind) with reckless abandon, reducing most of the castle wall to rubble as Kagome's arrows picked off the soldiers opting to attack her mate from a distance. Rikuo, Tenchi, and Ryoko were delivering brutal Kenjutsu strikes as they moved like a whirlwind through their opponents, leaving broken limbs and groaning men in a trail behind them. Ayeka was hanging back with Washu, protecting the scientist and the normal soldiers as they kept suppressive fire on the enemy soldiers. Guile, Ken, and Chun-li had taken the front where Mejiro was trying to flee protected by a group of bodyguards. The three world class marital artists worked together seamlessly. Guile's rapid fire Sonic Booms tore into the soldiers and allowed Chun-li to dive in and put her Spinning Bird Kick and over acrobatic moves to good use while Ryu charged up a Metsu Hadoken before releasing it as a large energy beam that swept the surviving soldiers off their feet.

Naruto tore through the opening Ryu's attack had left and was upon Mejiro in an instant. The silver nogitsune spun her naginata to block Nenshousaiga before swinging the shaft of the weapon up in an attempt to strike Naruto's head. "You little brat, everything I've worked for over the last century has been ruined by you!" yelled Mejiro as Naruto ducked under the attack and leapt back.

"Hey, if the rest of my cousins and you had just left me alone I wouldn't have any beef with you!" countered Naruto. "But you guys just had to keep coming after me!" Naruto barely twisted aside as Mejiro unleashed a series of rapid jabs at him before making a series of fast swings that would have taken off his head if they'd hit.

"You're not worthy of taking over the Kitsune clan with your foul human blood!" yelled Mejiro. "You have no pride as a kitsune and can't even use your youki properly!"

"Want to bet?" asked Naruto with a smirk. "Hatsu: Butou Kaen (Manifestation: Dancing Flame)!" said Naruto as fox fire roared up around him, causing Mejiro to stumble back from the sudden heat. "It took me a few days, but I managed to master my fear an even reach the next level, Hyoui: Okibi Oikaze (Haunting: Blazing Tailwind)!" All seven of Naruto's tails seemed to merge into one single tail sheathed in wind and flame that slammed into Mejiro's youki and pierced right through, tearing the left side of her kimono and leaving a large burn on her side.

Mejiro suddenly tossed something at Naruto, who slashed it apart on instinct only to find himself drenched in water and turning back into Naruko as the change in youki aura made Naruto's fear techniques collapse. "Hah, even with two new tricks you can't make them work with your other form!" said Mejiro with a smirk as she pulled a ballistic knife out and fired the blade at Naruko.

Naruko simply flicked her wrist and a crimson fan appeared clasped in her hand as Mejiro was pulling the trigger. Mejiro smirked as the blade raced towards the blond vixen. The smirk dissolved as Naruko snapped open the fan and the knife blade bounced off as if it had hit metal. "Kujakusen (Crimson Demon Fan), made from my fangs for the tines, Jurogumo silk and fire rat fur for the cloth," said Naruko with her own smirk. "I got it made when I figured out that Nenshousaiga was just a little harder to use in this form and I needed something to take its place."

"You damn Bitch!" growled Mejiro before unleashing a wave of youki that Naruko was forced to counter with a swing of her fan. The blond vixen growled as she saw Mejiro had taken the opportunity to run for it.

"She is really good at running away," said Naruko before grinning as her friends finally reached her. "Come on guys, we've got a bitch to catch," said Naruko as she led the group in giving chase.

(0o0o0)

Mejiro grinned as she found her helicopter waiting for her and her technicians loading the combat data sphere into the cargo bay. Hitting a button at the edge of the hanger, a force field snapped down just in front of Naruko as the vixen rounded the corner. "Sorry cousin, but she who fights and runs away lives to fight another day," said Mejiro with a mocking bow as she started towards her waiting vehicle.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you!" said Ryeka in a sing song voice that had Mejiro whirling around to see the cyan haired girl holding up a PDA.

"And why not?" asked Mejiro, only to see Ryeka push a button on the PDA. Hearing a rapid beeping, Mejiro spun around and saw a small glowing circle on the base of the helicopter before the chopper was suddenly enveloped in a rolling fireball.

"I was planning to detonate that before when you first made a run for it, but the explosion would have been right above the arena when I placed it and could have seriously hurt someone. Then you were off the radar and I couldn't be sure if I'd get you or not. Having a way to stop you from escaping seemed like a good idea after that. Getting your precious combat data was a good bonus," said the cyan haired girl.

"Bah, I'm still safe in here, there's no way you can get through to reach me," said Mejiro with a smirk before Naruko vanished in a yellow flash and reappeared to punch Mejiro in the side.

"I actually marked you with the formula for the Hiraishin when I almost hit you in the courtyard before you threw that stink and sound bomb," said Naruko with a smirk as she threw a kunai that hit the button to drop the force field, allowing her friends to spread out around them and cut off Mejiro's escape routes. "Nowhere to go now cousin, let's finish this," said Naruko as she assumed a sort of karate stance with Kujakusen held in front of her and opened. Mejiro assumed her own stance with her Naginata held in front of her ready to block Naruko's attacks or made rapid jabs. The two vixens stared one another down for a moment before suddenly Naruko blurred into action, ducking under Mejiro's counter slash and delivered a slashing blow with the edge of Kujakusen that left a tear along the right side of Mejiro's kimono. Mejiro's tails slammed into Naruko and tossed the hanyou away while a wave of fox fire forced Akira and Miyuki to break apart and leave Mejiro an opening to dart to a hidden panel in the hangar wall and slip into a secret passage, but not before kicking off her shoes to eliminate the danger of Naruko teleporting to her again.

"Sorry Naruko, she caught us by surprise," said Akira with a grimace as the group ran towards the secret passage with Ranko leading point.

"She's a fox, she's tricky," said Naruko with a shrug before yelling, "I JUST WISH SHE WASN'T A COWARD AND WOULD FACE ME IN A FAIR FIGHT INSTEAD OF CONSTANTLY RUNING AWAY AND HIDING BEHIND MINIONS!"

"And why didn't you tell any of us about that fan? When did you get that?" asked Hinata.

"It was the Ms. Nerima contest; I spent enough time as the dominant personality that I noticed the problem. Inuyasha-sensei took a clone of me to Toto-sai so I could get a list of what I needed and to figure out what kind of weapon would be good for me. Toto-sai finished it just after the contest and I've been practicing with it via shadow clones just in case the attacks it can use get out of control," said Naruko as she snapped the fan open and let everyone get a good look at the blue flames painted on the red fabric.

"Guys, I hear something big moving around the corner," whispered Ranko as she held her hand out to stop the group.

Hinata activated her Byakugan and gasped. "Mejiro is in some kind of giant mecha. It looks like a giant mechanical spider. She's waiting for us in a large hangar with access to the outside but appears to be ready to make a stand here," said the heiress.

"Give me a second," said Ryeka as she pulled a small baseball sized orb from her stuff space and pushed a switch on it. "This spy eye will let me analyze the thing for weapons and weaknesses," said the cyan haired girl as the little orb floated into the air and around the corner. Ryeka's holo laptop revealed a wire frame view of the mecha as the spy bot got closer to it. "Okay, we've got eight legs to increase stability, I see a laser cannon on each leg that protects the leg from enemies climbing up it or hiding beneath the mecha, a heavily armored 'head' where Mejiro is piloting the thing and that appears to be able to detach from the main body as an escape pod, an electric pulse generator that can send shock waves through the floor via the legs, a scorpion tail main cannon, and a generator at each leg. It looks like destroying the laser turret followed by most of a leg it is on will cause the access hatch to open and we can destroy the generators one by one. The generators all pool together to power the rest of the mecha, so we need to get rid of all of the while keeping the mecha upright as long as we can so we can keep hitting the generators through the underside hatches."

"So you mean we have to expose the core and hit it for massive damage? Then rinse and repeat?" asked Kimiko with a sigh at the clichés.

"Looks like it, but our first priority is to disable the head's escape pod system so she can't flee once we trash the thing," said Ryeka as she caused the schematic of the head portion to enlarge.

(0o0o0)

"Where are you?" growled Mejiro as she aimed the Demolisher's front cannons at the corner the group would have to come around to get to her. It had already been ten minutes and she knew Naruko wasn't going to give her enough time to prepare something else. Spotting shadows moving along the corridor wall, Mejiro grinned and as Naruko appeared rounding the corner the silver vixen fired the main cannon, sending a stream of energy down the corridor. "GOT YOU!" yelled Mejiro in glee, only to scowl as she saw Ryeka's Light Hawk Wings had protected the group. Her eyes widened as she saw Akira using his Chain Yanker as a tether to spin Naruko rapidly before hurling the fox girl right at Mejiro. The blond landed on top of the Demolisher's cockpit while her friends split up to attack the mecha's legs.

"Saikuronburēdo (Cyclone Blade)!" said Naruko as she created a large wind blade that resembled a chainsaw blade along the Kujakusen's blade edge that she used to rapidly cut through the fuel lines feeding the thrusters that would allow the cockpit to become an escape pod. "No more running Mejiro, this ends now!" yelled Naruko before flipping away from a stream of small lasers the tail fired from its secondary cannons meant for anti personal defense.

"Try your worst brat, this machine is invincible!" yelled Mejiro with a maniacal laugh. "You might disable a few systems, but I had redundant systems built in for all parts just in case someone managed to sabotoge a vital system!"

Hinata frowned as she danced around several lasers targetting her as she climbed up one of the mecha's front legs as the laser cannon fired at her. Ducking behind the leg to avoid the lasers, she saw Cinnamon fly past and fire a blast of fire and ice at the cannon and smiled as the detonation reduced the cannon to scrap, allowing her to run up the leg and leap into the air as chakra gathered in her hand. "Joudan Bakushou (High-Rank Exploding Palm)!" yelled Hinata as she jabbed her palm at the upper part of the leg and let the chakra detonate, blowing the leg clean off and making the whole mecha stagger. Hinata made a graceful landing on the floor and grinned as Thyme leapt to the access hatch as it popped open to allow the generator to vent excess heat so he could fire off a Fire Dragon Roar into the hatch and melt the generator into scrap. The whole mecha shuddered from the power loss before the rest evened out the energy flow while the pulse generator sent a wave of electricity arching out from the top of the mecha all the way to the ground that knocked the group back before the laser cannons resumed firing at the grounded teens.

Ryeka avoided the fire from the laser cannon guarding the rear leg she'd chosen to disable and provided a nimble target the machine's AI couldn't get a lock on. Phasing in beside the cannon, the cyan haired girl slashed the cannon in a single swing of her energy sword that sent a rain of sparks down as the cannon fell, followed closely by the lower portion of the leg as Kimiko slashed through it with her claws. Once again the giant machine shuddered and Shimoyo hurled a grenade Ryeka had given him into the hatch that popped open to take out the generator.

The power flux from the generator going offline was once again followed by an electic pulse. Miyuki leapt clear of the elecric pulse and bounced off the wall with ki claws bared to slash a laser cannon to pieces, allowing Hinata to blow a third leg off a second later. As soon as the hatch popped open, Ryeka fired an energy blast into the generator while Naruko had moved to harrassing Mejiro at the cockpit and forcing the silver fox to keep the tail guns trained on the blond vixen. The pulse generator sparked and was about to send out the electric wave before Hinata hurled an explosive note kunai at it that reduced it to scrap metal.

The brief power surge from the pulse generator's destruction halted the laser cannons and allowed Akira to leap up and and latch onto a laser cannon. "Kamite Ougi: La Bomba!" yelled Akira as he drove a fist covered in glowing ki into the cannon that sent shrapnel flying and gave Ryeka the opening to slice another front leg off and Miyuki to fire a ki blast into the now exposed generator. Now down to four legs, the Demolisher was wobbling a bit and that made it easier for Ryeka to hurl Ranko at a laser cannon and slash it to pieces with a series of rapid strikes that weakened the leg enough so that Shimoyo was able to sever it with a quick slash.

"Kamite Ougi (Godhand Succession Move): Wild Pitch!" yelled Miyuki as she hurled a giant ki ball into the newly exposed generator that created a very satisfying explosion.

Left with only three legs, the Demolisher was noticeably shuddering as Mejiro fought to keep it balanced, forcing her to divert her attention from the laser cannons. Akira gave Hiryuu a boost up and the young monk brought his getsugasan down in an overhead strike that left the laser cannon dead and the leg vulnerable to Ranko's sword strikes. As the leg fell in a shower of scrap metal, Ranko spun and fired off a Shishisenkou (Lion Battle Roar) into the newly-exposed generator and destroy it.

With the mecha down to just two legs on opposite sides of one another and tilting dangerously, the group now launched a two pronged attack where Hiryuu and Miyuki demolished the last two laser cannons, Shimoyo and Ranko sliced through the legs, and Kimiko fired off an arrow covered in a mix of youki and miko power into each generator hatch as it popped open. The two conflicting energies detonated and destroyed the last generators as the Demolisher sank to the ground with a rumble that shook Mejiro's castle.

Naruko grinned as she the mecha crashed to the floor and started delivering a series of punches to the glass covering the cockpit, only for Mejiro to hit a switch and unleash an electric shock that sent the blond vixen tumbling to the floor as the head of the mecha detached with a thud as if to crush the blond. Naruko rolled aside as hatches on the side of the head unfolded and released a liquid-like substance that hardened into a pair of wings. "Kuso, how many times is she going to run away!" growled Naruko as the head shot over towards the back of the mecha. However, instead of trying to flee from the large hangar, the tail of the Demolisher detached from the mecha and flew up on jets to merge with the head, forming a dragonfly-like mecha the size of a helicopter that aimed the tail cannon right at Naruko.

"Goodbye cousin," said Mejiro with a deranged smirk as the main cannon fired, sending a stream of plasma at Naruto.

Naruko snapped open Kujakusen as blue flames appeared along the edge of the fan. "Kaen Guruma (Flame Wheel)!" yelled Naruko as she spun like a dancer to create a swirling wall of fox fire that pushed back the plasma. Mejiro scowled and a pair of missiles launched, unfolded from beneath the cockpit and added their fire to the plasma stream, only for Ryeka to appear and slash them off as an explosive tag kunai hurled by Hinata destroyed the tail gun.

As the plasma stream faded, Naruko slowly stopped spinning and sank to one knee while panting before grinning as she stood and flames ignited along Kujakusen. "Honō no Mai (Fiery Dance)!" yelled Naruko as she swung the fan rapidly to shoot a barrage of fireballs towards Mejiro's mecha that tore it to scrap. Mejiro fell to the ground and Naruko pounced on her, placing the bladed edge of Kujakusen at the silver vixen's throat. "Game over cousin," said the blond as Hinata and Kimiko each slapped a sealing tag on the nogitsune.

"You… little… brat!" gasped Mejiro as the pain of the burns caused by the technique and the other wounds she'd suffered earlier in the day started catching up to her with her youki sealed.

"As I've said from the start, if you nogitsune hadn't started this feud I would have left you alone," said Naruko as Ryeka hand cuffed Mejiro's hands behind her back using manacles with binding seals etched onto them to keep her from transforming. "You're the one to blame for the loss of you little financial empire."

Mejiro's response was to spit at Naruko, who simply grabbed the nogitsune's tattered kimono sleeve and used it to wipe the spit off her face. Standing, Naruko watched as newly arrived soldiers took Mejiro away before the blond started to sway on her feet. Hinata barely managed to catch Naruko in time as the vixen's eyes rolled up and she collapsed.

(0o0o0)

Naruko slowly regained consciousness and grimaced at the smell of disinfectant in the air and the uncomfortable bed she was lying on. "Ugh, can someone get some fresh air in here?" she asked. A second later, Hinata was pressing her lips to Naruko's as she hugged the vixen before pulling back.

"Baka Vixen, do you know how worried I was?" asked Hinata. "You've been using so much chakra today your reserves are at academy student level!"

"Gomen Hinata-hime," said Naruko. A mischievous twinkle in her eye was the only warning Hinata had as the vixen flipped them over and grinned down at the surprised heiress. "I've still got enough energy to take advantage of you Hime!" exclaimed Naruko before she pressed her lips to Hinata's.

The door to the room opened and Ranma stepped through before his face went red and he stumbled back out of the room and keeping anyone else from entering. The fact the two kunoichi didn't notice him was a big clue to how distracted they were.

(0o0o0)

Hanzo idly munched on some Pocky as he stood before a large ring structure that had lightning crackling across it before it stabilized into a blue energy field and out of the field stepped nine figures. "Well guys, did you have fun infiltrating my sister's organization?" he asked with a grin.

"Oui, the little Reynard kept everyone so focused on him we were able to move around unnoticed," said the red suited man as he placed a suitcase on the table next to Hanzo. "I was able to get all her financial information and dealer contacts."

The lab coat wearing man adjusted his glasses and presented his own briefcase. "These are the medical procedures she used to enhance her men. Though they'd be hard to implement on a fully grown subject, I might be able to do so," he said.

"Weapons plans were a bit hard to get, but acting dumb helped," said the large Russian as he handed Hanzo several blueprints, including ones for the warden and scorcher units Naruto had faced. Hanzo let out a low whistle as he scanned over the documents before putting them aside.

"That dame was a real piece of work," said the baseball cap wearing man as he handed over several chips and data cards. "But sloppy. Nobody noticed me swiping these little gems from their computer center."

The soldier grunted as he tossed down a large binder. "She's got no real idea how to fight a real war, I don't see how her mercenary group has survived for so long," he said. "That's the strategy guide she has all her officers learn from. Bunch of baloney, Sun Tzu would have beaten her in five minutes!"

The one eyed black man placed several film canisters on the table. "Nobody evah suspected mah eye patch hid tah camera you put in boss. Got lotsa juicy pictahs of her big Demolisher toy," he said before taking a swig of his bottle.

The asbestos clad person removed their mask to reveal a smiling blonde woman as she unzipped the asbestos suit and let it fall to the floor to reveal a black leather cat suit that left quite a bit of cleavage revealed. "Nobody gave me a second look or questioned me when I was wandering around sweetie," she said as she hugged Hanzo and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Your sister is a real piece of work but leaving the fat suit behind allowed me to slip into the development area and get some of her shape shifting metal and the designs of the machinery to reproduce and program it."

"Glad to hear it Cassie," said Hanzo as he returned the kiss. "Maybe now I'll be able to give my cousin some help once we meet face to face. Gentlemen, you're off duty, go and relax. My wife and I are going to make up for lost time." Leading a giggling Cassie out of the room to wolf whistles from some of his men, Hanzo grinned. Things were finally starting to look up for him.

(0o0o0)

Mejiro grimaced as she was locked in her cell with Kuroten. "You ladies play nice now!" said the guard with a grin as he left the two vixen glaring at one another.

"Nice to see you sister," said Kuroten. "Lost to a Teenager lately?"

"You got beaten by his human girl friend," countered Mejiro.

"Slut," said Kuroten.

"Skank," countered Mejiro.

"Tramp," growled Kuroten

"Whore!" yelled Mejiro.

"Bitch!" growled Kuroten as the two vixen were face to face with lighting crackling between their eyes.

"You take that back!" screamed Mejiro as she slashed at her sister with her claws. Kuroten made a swipe with her own claws and the fight rapidly degraded to hair pulling and clothes tearing.

"Think we should try to stop them?" Gin asked Yun.

"Nah, let the wenches duke it out," said the pirate with a sigh as he scratched at his prosthetic arm where it joined his body.

**Well, that's it for this chapter. If Naruto and Naruko seem over powered, keep in mind they've been learning from several very powerful characters in Japan and Mejiro's men at best are GENIN LEVEL with her enhancements. That's way more than the average human, but they don't have the same training Naruto and other ninja do to make use of their chakra. Also, the Ultimate Fighters, I figure if they each had only one style implanted into them, they'd be much stronger, but Mejiro was asking for to much in such a short amount of time. They barely had any time to train through the moves before they went after Naruto and as such they were nowhere ready to use all those techniques against him. Compare it to someone playing a fighting game for the first time against someone who has been playing the game for a while. If they'd had about a year to get used to the moves and figure out effective combo chains, they'd be able to fight Naruto fairly evenly, but they didn't have that time they needed.**


	16. Trial 15: Nerima Hijinks

**Oh god, this chapter was a pain to write. I'm sorry for the delay in this one, but I honestly had to scrap it a few times and restart from scratch. Add in stuff at work and distractions on my XBOX 360 and I wasted plenty of time. I hope to get the next chapter out soon.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my own original characters.**

**Note: please leave a review telling me what you liked about this chapter or what didn't work for you. It helps me make the next one even better.**

Hinata frowned as she sipped from a glass of water. It was late at night and the moon shining through the kitchen window of Kitsune Sō would normally fill Hinata with peace but she was worried about Naruto. It had been several days since the group had returned from Mejiro's island and the blonde was putting up a good act of being his normal self, but to someone who had grown up with him like Hinata had, it was clear Naruto was tense and worried about something. She could see Jiraiya's eyes following the blonde as well, but the Gama-sannin seemed content to leave the issue in her hands.

The light tap of Naruto's claws caught Hinata's ears and she frowned at the rapid pace the blonde was moving at towards the bathroom. While Naruto was extremely quiet, his slightly longer than normal toe nails could give him away if he wasn't wearing anything and trying to move quietly on a wooden floor. Following her beloved, Hinata's eyes widened as she heard the toilet seat slam up and the unmistakable sound of Naruto retching into the porcelain bowl. Hinata hurried into the bathroom just as Naruto heaved a second time and held the hanyou boy steady. "Easy, Naruto-kun, let it all out," murmured Hinata as she activated her Byakugan, searching for any foreign traces in the blonde's body. Hinata frowned as she couldn't find anything in Naruto's system that would cause him to be so sick.

"Ugh, thanks, Hinata-chan," gasped Naruto just before his stomach lurched and he emptied the last of its contents into the toilet bowl. Hinata waited through a couple of dry heaves before flushing the toilet and leading Naruto to the sink.

"Let's get you cleaned up," said Hinata before wetting a washcloth and using it to gently clean Naruto's face, triggering the change into Naruko, who snuggled close to Hinata. "Can you tell me what's wrong with the two of you?" Hinata asked once she'd cleaned Naruko up.

Naruko was silent for a moment before looking up at Hinata with haunted eyes. "On that island… Naruto rammed a dual element version of Kakashi-sensei's Raikiri through one enemy's chest. When he pulled it out, it was covered in blood and our yokai rage roared in triumph. We were able to push it down in order to keep going, but the last few nights… we keep seeing our hands covered in blood tearing out the hearts of our friends and you and we're laughing!" The blond shuddered at the mental image before hugging Hinata tight.

"It's okay, Naruko-chan," said Hinata as she stroked the blonde's hair. "I know you'd never enjoy senseless killing; you're too human to give in to that part of your yokai heritage."

"It seems every time I face one of my cousins it grows stronger," said Naruko as she shuddered in Hinata's grasp before the Hyuuga heiress grabbed the blonde vixen's head and turned Naruko to face her.

"Listen to me, Naruko-chan and Naruto-kun," said Hinata. "I know that neither one of you will ever allow any harm to come to me while you still draw breath. The two of you are my sworn guardians and protectors in addition to the ones who hold my heart. I know that even if you have to cross the void of space you will rescue me from any prison and destroy those who would keep us apart."

"Hinata-chan," whispered Naruko before relaxing into her mate's arms and snuggling up to Hinata as she fell asleep, basking in the warmth of Hinata's love and devotion.

"I'm glad you caught Naruto, I was beginning to get worried," said Jiraiya softly as Hinata carried the sleeping vixen out of the bathroom and upstairs.

"You knew this was happening and didn't say anything," said Hinata with a hint of anger in her voice and eyes.

"I initially thought it was just nerves from all the training, but I began to see some of the signs that most ninja go through when they're agonizing over their first kill," said the Gama-Sannin as he followed Hinata into Naruto's room. "The thing that confused me was that Naruto has killed before; he and Akemi both burned up a bunch of bandits in Wave country and he delivered the killing blow to Orochimaru in his beast form."

"Yes, Naruto was in a bit of depression after Wave but warmed up with Akemi and Haku around us," said Hinata.

"I think this was the first time Naruto killed someone with his bare hands and watched the life leave their eyes, that's bound to change a person," said Jiraiya. "It's part of the burden each ninja takes up. Some grow to enjoy killing while others are so horrified they have to quit being a ninja. But Naruto is strong. He has you to support him and keep him from going off the deep end. I know that someday he'll unleash a change over the ninja world that will bring an end to the cycle of war and lead us into a golden age."

Hinata nodded and smiled at the silver haired man. "Yes, I believe in Naruto-kun. In my eyes he's a proud failure! When I look at him, I get an intense feeling in my heart. Because he isn't perfect… because he fails… he has the strength to get back up… because I believe that's what true strength is… and that's why I love him!"

Jiraiya grinned and gestured for Hinata to precede him out of the room. Turning and glancing at his second apprentice, Jiraiya smiled softly. "A real ninja is one who endures no matter what gets thrown at him… Let me explain something to you, there is only one thing that matters if you are a shinobi, and it isn't the number of techniques you possess. All you do need is the guts to never give up," said Jiraiya softly before closing the door.

Naruko's eye opened for a moment and a smile crept across her face before she settled into a deep sleep with a murmur of, "Ero-sennin, Hinata-chan: thank you. I'll be strong from now on."

(0o0o0)

"I never thought I'd be glad to be back in school," said Naruto with a sigh as the group of friends walked towards Furinkan.

"Well, with our summer being all crazy, normal is good," said Akira from where the two were walking along the fence with Thyme while the girls stayed below to avoid giving perverts a look up their skirts.

"But the summer went by so fast," said Cinnamon with a sigh.

Hinata patted the phoenix princess on the back as she said, "Don't worry, Cinnamon-chan, I'm sure we'll have some breaks during the year once something happens that destroys the school."

Seeing the gleam in his sister's eye, Thyme raised his hand. "And no blowing up the school yourself!"

Cinnamon pouted but didn't deny the implied accusation.

"And here comes the daily Baka Bash," said Miyuki as Shugo charged the group with bokken raised to smite down divine justice. Sadly for the heir of the Kuno clan, nobody was in the mood to play with him and a group kick sent him flying over the building as the group of friends made their way to homeroom.

(0o0o0)

Naruto grinned as he left his new shop class. With Driver's Ed and car maintenance out of the way, Keiichi had moved Naruto's class to learning basic wood and metal working for home repairs while also allowing them to tinker in whichever of the two fields they wanted for special projects. Ryeka and Naruto had both chosen metal work. Naruto was working on making his own custom Shinobi gear starting with shuriken. He planned to incorporate seals and runes to the projectiles during the forging and create a whole arsenal that would revolutionize the ninja world. Hinata and several other students had gotten to attend a class taught by Kagome and Rei Hino to improve their spiritual powers. Naruto had felt her warm miko aura suddenly ignite during class and wash over the school after several other lesser auras flared up, but it was quickly squashed by Kimiko's own aura.

"So what was with those aura flares I kept feeling today?" Naruto asked when the group gathered for lunch.

"Kagome-sensei and Rei-sensei were having each of us exert as much power as we could at once," said Hinata, who was digging into her bento with extra vigor and actually eyeing Naruto's extra ramen.

"Yeah, it's only the fact I have several years of training on Hinata that keeps her from surpassing my power level," said Kimiko as she hugged the bluette around the shoulders. "I wouldn't be surprised if someday she could reach the point where Naraku would turn to dust if he simply faced her."

Naruto let out a low whistle. Inuyasha and Kagome had made many comments on Naraku's strength and resilience to their abilities, so the blonde had a good idea how strong the despicable hanyou had been. "You rock, Hinata-chan!" he said, only to find his second bowl of ramen being daintily devoured by his mate. "I'm guessing putting out your full power at once burned out your energy?" he drawled.

Hinata finished slurping up some noodles and wiped her mouth before letting out a small burp before saying, "Excuse me. Yes, while it's nowhere near what I get after using too much chakra, my miko power reserves do tax me quite a bit."

Naruto just chuckled and signaled Li Na to send them a few extra bowls of ramen.

(0o0o0)

"Bad news, guys," said Ranma when the group arrived at the dojo for their afternoon training. "We've been going over video logs from Mejiro's island and it appears Kuroten's assistant Peero went to work for Mejiro. He was in the middle of brokering a deal for her when she was captured and he's managed to slip off the radar again. Be careful, he has enough connections he could make life difficult for you."

"He's got some connections to the Elemental nations. He might be able to hire Shinobi and bring them here to eliminate us," said Hinata.

"I don't know about that, Hinata-chan," said Naruto as he considered the possibility. "If this was Konoha, an enemy ninja would actually have an easier time sneaking up on us with all the chakra signatures wandering around. With just Rōshi-san, Ero-sennin, and us here any ninja will register on our senses long before they get close."

Hinata nodded, but still didn't look convinced. "But if he were to get in contact with Iwa, they'd jump at the chance to get you outside of Konoha. Peero could cause us lots of trouble."

"Great, maybe we need to take a week off and hunt the little bugger down," said Ryeka.

"Yeah, dad, you were always going off for adventures all during the school year!" exclaimed Akira, only to blanch as Akane stepped around the corner with her arms crossed and glaring at the group. "On second thought, school is lots of fun!" he stammered.

"Good, do you realize how close your father came to failing school?" asked Akane as Ranma rubbed his head in shame. "Hinako-sensei had to tutor him every night for three months straight just to make sure he could graduate with me."

"Don't worry, Akane-sensei, I won't be taking time off for school without a good reason," said Naruto as he started doing some warm-up stretches. "Now come on, Ranko, I want to see how I fare against those Yamisenken and Umisenken techniques!"

(0o0o0)

"MMM, Hinata-chan, this bento is delicious!" exclaimed Naruto as he eagerly ate the lunch boxes Hinata had prepared. The blonde's tails were wagging with happiness and causing Hinata to giggle at the look of bliss on his face.

"Are you sure you're not just buttering me up so you can binge on ramen?" asked Hinata with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Hinata-chan, your cooking is one of the few things I enjoy eating as much as ramen," said Naruto as he took a break from eating to kiss her cheek.

"So her food is better than the divine goodness that is ramen?" asked Kimiko with one raised eyebrow at the near-blasphemy Naruto was stating.

"Depends on the ramen," said Naruto. "All home cooked food is better than instant, and if it isn't prepared just right like the Nekohaten restaurant does the ramen can lose its quality." Kimiko nodded in understanding and raised her bowl of ramen in salute to the smart answer.

A commotion at the other side of the school yard caught the group's attention. Li Na was yelling and chasing after a white blur while throwing chains from one sleeve and swinging a meteor hammer in her free hand in an attempt to snare the blur. Ukyo's son Kazuki was quick to join in, slinging shuriken, kunai, and mini spatulas to hem the blur in. Both the freshmen were yelling about a food thief, causing Ranko, Miyuki, and Akira to exchange glances. "Let me guess," said Thyme. "Another of Ranma-sensei's old acquaintances has stopped by?"

"Sure sounds like his story of Picolet Chardin II," said Miyuki as she settled into a ready crouch. "If that blur comes near us, jump aside so they can't swipe your food!"

True to the cat girl's words, the blur evaded Li Na and Kazuki's attacks and darted towards the group. The teens scattered, allowing the blur to skid to a stop a slight distance away from them. "Impressive," said the figure, revealing himself to be a Caucasian youth with brown hair wearing a white tuxedo underneath a white cape. "Is the petit _chat_ the daughter of Ranma Saotome?" asked the youth. "I am Caleçon Chardin and I have business with you."

"If this is about that corny demand Picolet made that dad owed him a daughter as a bride for that stupid bill, then forget it!" snarled Miyuki. "No way am I marrying a freak like you!"

"Ah, but when your father signed the bill, he didn't read the fine print on the bottom!" said the youth as he presented a laminated piece of paper to Miyuki, whose eyes narrowed as she saw what appeared to be decorative art was actually text mixed up with fancy lines to disguise it.

"Give me that a minute," said Cinnamon as she pulled a pair of glasses from a pocket. "Glasses of Reading, allows me to understand any printed text," said the phoenix princess as she slid them on, knowing that all the guys in the school with a glasses fetish were now very happy. "Well, Miyuki, it looks like he is right, this fine print says in French that your dad agrees to give one of his daughters up in marriage if the debt isn't paid."

"And he never paid, so I've come to claim my bride!" said the youth as he swooped in for a kiss. Miyuki was too shocked to react as the teen's mouth stretched to obscene lengths and closed over her upper torso. However, Akira let out a roar of outrage and delivered a punch to Caleçon's stomach that had the French youth staggering back and releasing Miyuki, who was shuddering from the slobber dampening her fur. Naruto and Kimiko both grabbed their noses as the sudden smell of wet cat fur hit the delicate organs.

"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!" yelled Akira as he decided to see just how durable the Chardin family's face was. Every blow made a new part of Caleçon's head move in an unnatural way until he looked like a Picasso painting. "You okay, Miyuki?" Akira asked his sister after he finished rearranging Caleçon's face into modern art only to have her throw herself against him and hug him.

"I need a nice warm bath, mom brushing my fur out, and my favorite dinner before I'll be okay again," whispered Miyuki as Akira hugged her, not caring that there was some of his former victim's saliva covering her.

"You two get out of here," said Naruto as he glared at Caleçon. "I fully expect Ranma-sensei to come here and rip this little jerk's spine out."

"We're not done!" groaned Caleçon as his distorted face slowly settled back into its more normal form. "I will have the girl!"

"Try it, bub!" growled Naruto as he used his thumb to prepare Nenshousaiga for a Battōjutsu strike. Thyme and Cinnamon had both summoned their weapons and moved to either side of Naruto, providing a screen for the Saotome siblings as Akira carried Miyuki out of the school yard.

"It is beneath my dignity to deal with peasants like you!" Caleçon said.

"Then you shall face me!" yelled Shugo from behind the French teen. "I witnessed your entire disgusting display and you aren't fit to even be here! A true samurai cannot allow this travesty to continue!"

"And who are you?" asked Caleçon in an arrogant tone.

"I am Kuno Shugo, Captain of the Furinkan Kendo team and Green Flame of this school!" yelled Shugo as he brought his bokken into a ready position.

"Kuno? Oh yes, you're the wimp who couldn't hold a bokken for a year after your stupid mother died," said Caleçon with a sneer. "Leave the grownups alone, little baby," said the French teen as he turned back to Naruto, Cinnamon, and Thyme.

Naruto actually looked even more disgusted as he dropped his ready stance. "Shugo? He's all yours," he said, causing Caleçon to turn and stare at Shugo.

"Thank you, Uzumaki-san," said the Kuno heir as an aura of green flames erupted around him. "You dare make fun of the death of my beloved mother?" growled Shugo before he exploded forward in a green blur. "Strike!" yelled Shugo as Caleçon was sent flying into the wall. "You are the worst kind of scum. To touch a woman like you did is no better than rape!" said Shugo in a calm tone that actually had Naruto shuddering a bit. It was easy to forget that for all his bluster Shugo was one of the top ranked kendo users in the country and in a pure kendo match was undefeated.

"You dare lay a hand on me?" gasped Caleçon as he staggered to his feet and placed a hand on a bruise forming on his cheek. "Maids, protect your master!" he yelled, causing five colored blurs to appear before him before resolving into five girls in different colored maid outfits. The basic outfit consisted of a top with puffy shoulders and an apron that covered the lower body, a tiara in each girl's hair, stockings that almost came up to the base of the skirt but sill left a glimpse of the girl's thighs, and a pair of knee high boots each covered in a sheath the same color as the girl's apron and tiara.

"What are you girls, a sentai team?" Cinnamon asked as she casually picked up a piece of octopus tentacle from her lunch.

"We are the Jewel Maids, stuck working off a contract to the Chardin Family for a meal we ate," said the red-clothed maid at the front of the group. "Maid Ruby!"

"Maid Emerald!" declared the green-clad maid.

"Maid Sapphire!" exclaimed the blue one.

"Maid Diamond!" declared the maid with a slightly grey trim to her outfit.

"Maid Opal!" said the dark-skinned and black clad maid.

"So magical girls then?" asked Cinnamon casually. Seeing the ruby maid nod, Cinnamon grinned. "I'll give you girls one warning to run, you won't like what you're going to face if you stay here."

"Believe me," said Emerald, "if we could run we would. But our contract says we're stuck serving the douchebag as bodyguards."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Cinnamon as the bit of tentacle started to glow. "Evard's black tentacles!" yelled Cinnamon, causing a twenty foot wide circle to spread out beneath the maids, whose eyes widened as large black tentacles rose out of the ground. "You're magical girls, this spell conjures tentacles to grapple with, you do the math," said Cinnamon. The maids leapt up to the top of the wall around the school and eyed the large tentacles warily.

"I think discretion is the better part of valor at this point," said Sapphire.

"I don't know," said Diamond, with a blush on her face that grew as Cinnamon smirked at her.

"We're leaving," said Opal before flipping Caleçon the bird. "The contract said we'd only fight against humans, demons, spirits, and other typical shounen villains, nothing about hentai tentacle summoners. Not to mention how you kept trying to make us do all those hentai things. Consider our contract void and our debt paid," she said before the girls leapt away over the rooftops.

Cinnamon canceled the spell as Shugo advanced on the now pale Caleçon. "This is why you need to treat your servants with more respect," said the Kuno heir. "May the heavens give me the power to smite this evil prince!" roared Shugo as he charged at Caleçon. The French teen frantically tried to escape from the green flame covered kendoist, but Shugo delivered a jab to his chest that sent him into LEO on a stream of green flames.

"Well, Shugo, color me impressed," said Naruto as the twinkle in the sky that was Caleçon faded away.

"Thank you," said the kendoist before he toppled over. "It appears I still need to work on my ki reserves," said the brown haired teen, only to feel Naruto slinging him over his shoulder.

"Don't worry, we're on a truce until this is over and then we'll have a sparring session. I may not like you, but I can respect that you've been training hard over the summer to develop that flame aura," said the fox boy as he carried Shugo to the nurse's office.

(0o0o0)

Picolet Chardin the Second was enjoying a nice cup of tea when a shiver suddenly went down his spine. Thinking it was a random cold chill, he started to sip his tea when a loud boom shook the Chardin mansion. As the sound repeated itself along with the shaking, the master of La Belle France School of French style of Dining Martial Arts realized he was hearing something pounding on the door of his family's mansion. Making his way to the front door, he threw the wooden panels open and found himself presented with the beaten form of his nephew being held up by an enraged Ranma Saotome. "You and me need to talk, Picolet!" growled the master of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū, causing Picolet to grow pale.

"What did my nephew do?" asked Picolet with a growing feeling of dread.

"This little asshole decided to give my only daughter one of those upper torso engulfing kisses you like so much," said Ranma in an icy tone.

"_Sacr__é__ Bleu_!" gasped Picolet before Ranma thrust the laminated bill into his face.

"I thought we were finished with this when I beat you?" asked Ranma.

"I was satisfied," explained Picolet, his mind racing to figure out a way to avoid being ripped apart by Ranma. "But our contest was only to eliminate the bill incurred by your father and _Monsieur_ Tendo."

"So on a technicality your nephew decides to mentally scar my daughter and press his suit against her will?" asked Ranma as frost began forming on the ground around him.

"I'm very sorry, _Monsieur _Ranma, I will punish him accordingly," said Picolet, only to gulp as Ranma fixed him with a death glare.

"No, my daughter has this for you," said Ranma as he handed Picolet a single piece of paper. The French man read the paper and his eyes widened the farther down he got. "As you can see, she's calling for a Martial Arts Dining competition between them at the Kuno mansion in a month to give him time to heal and her to train. She wins, all your claims on my family are void, he wins and he gets to try to date her."

"Agreed, I'll have him ready in a month's time," said Picolet as Ranma finally handed over Caleçon.

(0o0o0)

"Alright, Miyuki, first part of training is pure speed," said Ranma that night as the Saotome family plus Ranma's parents and Soun sat around their table except for Miyuki who was sitting with Ranma and Genma at a smaller side table. "You're going to be working on moving those chopsticks fast enough to steal our food while at the same time defending your own."

"I won't go easy on you, girl!" barked Genma, only to receive an elbow in the side from Ranma.

"And YOU are going to make sure that you leave the red rimmed dishes alone, those are the bare minimum she needs to function tomorrow," said Ranma with a glare at his father.

"Itadakimasu!" yelled the three Saotome before their chopsticks became blurs.

(0o0o0)

"Good, you've got your chopstick and utensil speed up," said Ranma a few days later with a nod as Miyuki daintily wiped her mouth after stealing the last of Genma's food during one of their dinner spars. "Now we'll work on countering Caleçon's style that I used and a few I came up with after the match with Picolet. The first is the _Parlay du Foie Gras_; we'll work on this tonight when your friends are here."

(0o0o0)

"So the whole point of this move is to feed your opponent or your audience instead of yourself?" asked Naruto after swallowing a bite of food Miyuki had fired into his mouth. So far the only one who hadn't been forced fed was Hinata due to her being able to read Miyuki's body language and catch the food sent her way so it landed neatly on a plate in front of her.

"Yeah, and to those big eaters, that's a fate worse than death," said Ranma with a grin.

"But won't Caleçon know about the move and work to defend against it?" asked Hinata.

Ranma nodded and held up two plates up in front of his face. "Picolet used a plate as a defense; I simply threw another plate into his stretchy mouth and fed him through the gap," explained Ranma, easily catching a piece of chicken Miyuki shot through the gap. "So Miyuki is going to be ready and add a third plate, giving her four gaps to put food through."

"You said last time the referee clearly favored Picolet and wouldn't look at him if he would lose points," said Akira as he chewed on another morsel of food.

"Right," said Ranma. "Which is why I've asked a neutral party to be the referee with Picolet's agreement."

(0o0o0)

"Hello, everyone, welcome to the Kuno mansion where we will be having a Martial Arts Dining challenge between Saotome Miyuki and Caleçon Chardin. My name is Cologne of the Joketsuzoku (Chinese Amazons) and I've been asked to referee this match," said the Amazon matriarch several weeks later to the crowd gathered in temporary spectator stands around the edge of the Kuno mansion's courtyard with a banquet table in the center of a raised ring. "The food for this contest has been provided by the combined talents of Tofu Kasumi and Morisato Belldandy. Will the contestants please come forward?"

Caleçon strutted into the ring, showing no signs of the tremendous beating he'd received a month ago. The teen sat down in his chair like a prince on his throne, ignoring the boos from the crowd. Once the spectators quieted down, everyone began wondering where Miyuki was.

A loud gong had everyone looking towards the front door of the Kuno mansion, which opened to reveal Naruto and Shimoyo in matching suits of samurai armor. Naruto's armor was painted to look like flames while Shimoyo's looked like icicles were hanging from each edge. The two hanyou stepped forward a few paces from the door of the mansion and suddenly turned and swung their swords together in a simultaneous quick draw that caused an explosion of light as fire and ice met and clashed. When it cleared, Miyuki was revealed wearing a black cheongsam with a golden tiger embroidered on it and hiding the bottom of her face with a fan while one arm gently rested on Shugo's arm as the kendoist escorted her out of his home. Behind them marched the Furinkan kendo team in full battle regalia and marching in perfect synch. Cheers filled the courtyard as Miyuki and her honor guard made their way to the stage where Shugo pulled Miyuki's seat out for her and then helped push it back towards the table like a true gentleman before leading the kendo team off the stage to a section of the bleachers set aside for them. Miyuki finally lowered her fan and fixed Caleçon with a death glare. "I hope you're hungry, because at the end of this contest I'm going to be serving you some humble pie," she said as she snapped the fan closed.

Several Naruko clones in waitress uniforms streamed out of the Kuno mansion with a set of covered dishes in their arms. The clone waitresses made their way to the table and laid out the dishes, presenting each contestant with a table full of food. "The rules are simple," said Cologne as she hopped up on a stool at the edge of the table where she could see Miyuki and Caleçon. "If you are seen eating by normal eyes you get a swat from my cane and a fresh dish of food. The winner is the first one to finish their half of the table. After that we will then have a simple eating contest for bonus points to make things interesting. Contestants ready?" Miyuki and Caleçon both nodded as they locked eyes. "Begin!"

Instantly, Miyuki's hand twitched and the plate of salmon beside her was clear, causing Caleçon's eyes to widen as the drumstick from his roasted chicken buried itself in his nose. "Foul!" cried Cologne as she bopped the French teen on the head as a second chicken was delivered by a Naruko waitress.

Miyuki smiled as parts of her chicken vanished one by one. It was clear to all the martial artists present that she was eating quickly but daintily so she could enjoy her food, unlike Caleçon who inhaled his food and didn't savor the taste. "You know, you really should try to taste the food," said Miyuki as her salad vanished in bits as she spoke. "Auntie Kasumi is one of the best chefs I know."

"Please, as if I'll give up my advantage," said Caleçon, only to gag as the pepper shaker on the table hit him in the face and caused him to sneeze. The soup he'd just inhaled went flying and Miyuki barely ducked the impromptu attack, however her surprise caused her to freeze with a roll visible in her mouth.

"Foul!" yelled Cologne, her staff lashing out and whapping both teens. Miyuki easily took the blow, well used to such hits from training, while Caleçon was gagging from some soup going up his nose. Miyuki was able to take the lead as her replacement roll was gone in a second and Caleçon was losing ground. It got worse as Miyuki's orange suddenly ended up in Caleçon's eye, causing him to howl as the citric acid stung him. Miyuki used that distraction to actually steal Caleçon's salmon, humming in contentment as she enjoyed the excellent food and the site of Cologne bashing Caleçon over the head and admonishing him to not play with his food. To add insult to injury, Miyuki fired off a banana into Caleçon's mouth so quickly that for a moment it looked like he was sucking on it. This earned him a slap from the Naruko waitress who had been bringing him his replacement fruit dish as well as a whack from Cologne and an admonition to keep his dirty stuff in his room.

"Looks like I only have my dessert left," said Miyuki with a smile as she gestured to the selection of pastries on her side of the table after finishing a rack of ribs. Caleçon, his face black and blue from Cologne's cane, still had half his food left besides dinner thanks to Miyuki's attacks earning him penalties.

"What sort of Martial Arts Dining is this?" growled Caleçon as his salad vanished.

"Martial Arts Food Fighting, you attack your enemy so they can't eat," said Miyuki with a smile as visibly she took a bite out of a parfait. "Mmm, tasty," she said as a Naruko waitress brought her the penalty dessert.

"You!" growled Caleçon before his arms blurred and the plates on his side of the table were clean except for his desert.

"Oh, finally getting serious?" asked Miyuki as slices of her cake vanished between words. "At least you didn't try licking your food from your plate like your uncle did. Cologne would have smacked you through the table if you did that."

One by one, the desserts on the table vanished as the two teens watched one another for signs of attack or weakness. Caleçon was totally unprepared for Miyuki's elbow to suddenly come down on the edge of the table and send his custard shooting into the air as Miyuki worked on finishing some chocolate mousse. The cat girl smiled as the last of her dessert vanished then broke into laughter as the custard came down and landed on Caleçon's head upside down, covering him in the gooey treat.

"The winner of the eating contest is Saotome Miyuki!" declared Cologne to cheers from the audience.

"I call foul play, you cheated!" declared Caleçon after he angrily flung some custard from his face with a napkin.

"What, you expected a member of Anything Goes to use the obvious counter to your style?" asked Miyuki in a mocking tone. "I just bet you spent that entire month learning how to block the Parlay du Foie Gras and nothing else, right?" Seeing Caleçon turn red under the custard, Miyuki snapped her fan open in front of her mouth as she did her best insane noblewoman laugh. "Oooh hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! You are truly a fool!"

"Children, we still have the bonus contest," said Cologne. "Our chefs have created a special desert and you must eat it bite by bite. Failure to finish the dish before your opponent will result in a more severe penalty dish." Miyuki and Caleçon both glared at one another and nodded, ready to finish the contest. Belldandy and Kasumi each walked out with a covered tray and placed one before each contestant.

Belldandy smiled as she said, "We hope you enjoy."

"Our Molten Core Sundae," finished Kasumi with a grin as the two cooks removed the covers to reveal two miniature Mount Fuji made from ice cream with the lower part being covered in a light chocolate glaze and the upper part in powdered sugar.

"Looks tasty," said Miyuki as she used a spoon to take a bit of the top off and savor the sweet treat. "Mmm, fresh strawberry."

"Though this goes against my school's teachings, I shall not let this competition end in my disgrace!" said Caleçon as he took a bite of his dessert.

"You usually just swallow everything down, don't you?" asked Miyuki curiously before her spoon broke through the ice cream and revealed a hot chocolate syrup core to the 'mountain'. "Ooohhh, yummy!" she exclaimed as she scooped up a bit of the 'lava' while Caleçon took a series of rapid bites.

"Of course, why do you ask?" Caleçon asked in a bored tone before suddenly froze as excruciating pain shot through his head.

"Well, judging by the look on your face, you just had your first ice cream headache," said Miyuki with a smirk as she calmly continued eating her treat while watching Caleçon pound his head into the table in an attempt to relieve the pain he was feeling. The cat girl smiled as she finished her dessert and sat with her arms folded and watching Caleçon start rolling on the floor in pain.

"Winner, Saotome Miyuki!" yelled Cologne as she raised the cat girl's arm into the air.

"I call foul play!" yelled Caleçon after gulping down some Tylenol to relieve his headache.

"Tough luck, kid, you came into this match unprepared and against a Saotome that can make you dead," said Cologne.

Shugo strode up and grabbed Caleçon by the shoulders. "Now it is time for you to leave," said the Kuno heir.

"I refuse, this whole thing has been a set up!" snarled Caleçon as Picolet groaned in the back ground.

"There is nothing worse than a sore loser," said Shugo. "You came in unprepared and paid the price."

"Big words for a little boy swinging a stick around," said Caleçon with a smirk.

Shugo suddenly blurred and was past Caleçon with his bokken raised as if from an upward slash. The kendoist tucked the wooden blade into his hakama and smirked as Caleçon's clothes exploded into ribbons of fabric while leaving the arrogant French teen unharmed except in dignity as his leopard print boxers were revealed. "That was your last warning, knave, now get off my property before you really get humiliated," said Shugo as he turned to face Caleçon.

"Lay a hand on me and I'll have you arrested," barked Caleçon, not seeming to notice his uncle sneaking through the crowd in an attempt to flee the vicinity.

"I won't be touching you, my maids will just be throwing out the trash," said Shugo as the Jewel Maids appeared behind him.

"How are you working for him?" demanded Caleçon, starting to sweat a bit.

"We happened to see an ad in the paper that the Kuno family needed more maids," said Maid Ruby with a smirk.

"And we were impressed with his behavior and skill when he sent you flying before. Unlike you, Shugo-sama is a true gentleman and hasn't tried to make us do anything we wouldn't want to do," said Maid Emerald as she cracked her knuckles.

"Time for payback for all the gropes and other harassment," snarled Maid Sapphire. The five magical maids jumped Caleçon and quickly had him tied up with ropes so he couldn't move.

"Permission to take out the trash, Shugo-sama?" asked Maid Diamond with a grin as Maid Opal grabbed the French teen by his feet.

"Granted," said Shugo with a smirk before the dark-skinned maid started to spin in place, causing Caleçon to scream as all the blood rushed to his head. With a grunt, Maid Opal released her burden and Caleçon went rocketing up into the air, vanishing with a twinkle in the sky.

"With that out of the way, please enjoy the food prepared by our special chefs as well as the generous contributions of the Nekohanten and Okonomiyaki Ucchan's for all our guests," said Kuno as a tent nobody had paid attention to opened to reveal a large open air kitchen with Shampoo, Ukyo, Kasumi, and Belldandy standing ready to cook up food for all the guests.

(0o0o0)

The next school day dawned bright and sunny, but it had a surreal feeling as Naruto's group approached the gates of Furinkan and saw Shugo walking towards them surrounded by five girls who could only be the Jewel Maids wearing the Furinkan fuku with the skirt in the same color as the trim on their maid outfits. "You five are students here now?" asked Naruto with one raised eye brow.

"One of the rules of magical girls: got to go to school," said Opal with a shrug of her shoulders. "These uniforms are actually just an alternate form of the maid outfits, it's to annoying to have to deal with a secret identity when everyone has already seen us and will be able to figure things out as soon as we have to transform for some reason."

"With all the weirdness that happens in this school that could be often," said Kimiko with a grin.

"Naruto-san, will you honor me with a real match this afternoon after school?" asked Shugo politely, causing Naruto to blink in surprise before giving the older teen a once-over.

"You've changed Shugo, I guess this incident with Caleçon had a small payoff since it got your head out of your ass," said Naruto, causing the Kuno teen to face-fault while his new maids giggled.

"Don't worry, Shugo-sama, I'm sure you'll do well against Naruto-san if you try your best," said Sapphire with a smile as she helped Emerald pull Shugo to his feet from his face fault before both groups went off to their classes.

(0o0o0)

"Alright, let's keep this fight friendly," said Ranko once school was out for the day. Shugo's new behavior, his maids, and the anticipation of seeing Naruto take a fight seriously had the whole school watching the two teens facing off against one another.

"Alright Shugo, let's see just how good that training you put yourself through was," said Naruto as he assumed a battōjutsu stance.

"Very well, Naruto-san, here I come!" exclaimed Shugo as his green flame aura sprang up around him before he dashed at Naruto, unleashing a barrage of Bokken strikes that Naruto dodged by a hair's breadth each time. Naruto waited for the split second he needed and as Shugo overextended his blade just a bit Nenshousaiga seemed to leap from its sheath as it sheared through the wooden blade and sent it flying into the air. Naruto was not prepared for Shugo to use the bokken handle clenched in his fist as a punching tool and the blonde kitsune took a good hit to the chest from the taller teen that was quick to try to sweep Naruto's legs out from under him with a kick. Naruto grinned at the Kuno heir's unusual tactics and departure from his typical methods of attack.

"Not bad, Shugo, I'm actually enjoying this," said Naruto as he did a jump kick to knock Shugo back.

"Bokken!" yelled Shugo as he raised his arms. Ruby and Emerald both tossed a bokken to the Kendo enthusiast and he settled into a two-sword stance with one sword above his head at an angle and the second at chest height.

"Nito-ryu?" asked Naruto with a grin. "Someone really has been expanding his options. Now if we can just break you from your reliance on strict forms we'll make a decent fighter out of you."

Shugo smirked before exploding forward with a series of almost dancelike twirls that left plenty of openings but served to keep Naruto guarding one side before finally blocking one strike. Instantly, Shugo used Nenshousaiga as a brace and spun around the other way, slamming both of his bokken into the right side of Naruto's chest as the fox boy stumbled from the sudden lack of support against Nenshousaiga. "How's that from breaking from strict forms?" asked Shugo with a smirk as he settled back into his Nito-ryu stance.

"Pretty good, actually," said Naruto as he regained his balance and grinned. "But you still need to break away from forms." The blonde dashed forward and suddenly darted to the side to avoid Shugo's counter and delivered a sweep kick to the kendoist's feet as he tried to regain his balance. "And work on adding some non weapon moves to your arsenal," said Naruto as Shugo fell on his face. "What if someone attacks you when you don't have a bokken on you?" the blonde asked as he placed Nenshousaiga at Shugo's neck.

"I concede the point and match," said Shugo with a sigh.

"Great, now let's go get some food. Watching the two of you go at it made me hungry," said Miyuki.

(0o0o0)

"Order up, Twenty Ran-chan specials, two veggie Okonomiyaki, five fish Okonomiyaki, two meat lover's Okonomiyaki, and a side of dumplings," yelled Ukyo as she flipped the massive number of Okonomiyaki off her grill and onto places that Konatsu tossed out for Kazuki to catch with a flip in mid air before he landed with all the plates on a tray to applause from the patrons of Okonomiyaki Ucchan's. "Sheesh, you kids eat more in one sitting than Ran-chan ever did," said the chef with a smirk as Kazuki delivered the order to Naruto's group. Shugo had agreed to foot the bill for everyone and despite Naruto and Kimiko arguing for the Nekohaten, the rest of the group had convinced Hinata to use the Puppy Dog Eyes no Jutsu to make Naruto cave in and agree to Okonomiyaki.

"And at least we're paying. Dad mostly free loaded off you, Auntie Ukyo," said Miyuki as she savored the smell of a fish Okonomiyaki.

"Yeah, and all of you have better manners than he did," said Ukyo with a smile.

"You can thank Grandma, Auntie Kasumi, and Mom for that," said Akira. "Grandma would always reach for the family honor blade if she caught us eating rudely at the dinner table while Auntie Kasumi just gave us the 'I'm so disappointed in you' look."

"Don't remind me of how fast mom was to whip out that katana," said Ranko with a shudder. "I swear one moment she's a master swordsman and the next the katana is flying wildly through the air and about to slice me in half when she was training me."

"Sounds pretty bad," said Naruto. "My dad got a little training from a samurai in Iron country and only picked up their chakra flow technique that I use for most of my attacks with Nenshousaiga. Mom was the one who really taught me how to use my sword."

"I remember you kept showing up for training with new bruises every day and begging me to use my ointment on you," said Hinata with a mischievous giggle. Naruto scowled at that reminder, though it seemed ineffective as Hinata leaned in and kissed his cheek, much to the amusement of his friends.

(0o0o0)

As Naruto and his friends were enjoying their meal, a passenger ship was pulling into the harbor. Nobody noticed a couple among the crowd disembarking from the ship and making their way to a hotel seemed to avoid bumping into everyone in the crowd for their entire trip and reacted to sudden movements by tensing up before relaxing. Once they were alone, the couple was covered in clouds of smoke that dissipated to reveal two Shinobi from Iwa. The male had his Hitai-ate around his right bicep while the female wore the standard red Iwa uniform with the right sleeve missing. "Ugh, I hate traveling by boat," groaned the young woman as she collapsed on the bed.

The young man chuckled and pulled a bottle of pills from the suitcases they'd brought along. "Well, I guess that just goes to show how strong your Earth chakra is. You can't stand to be out of sight from land for long," he said as he handed her the pills and a bottle of water.

The young woman gulped down the medicine and rubbed her head as it started working. "So how much time do you think we have?" she asked.

"Our mission should be done as quickly and discreetly as possible, it's only by sheer luck we were able to know where the target is," said the young man as he started stretching out the kinks in his muscles before pulling out a set of nunchaku and twirling them slowly around himself. After a few minutes of exercise, he found his vision cut off by a piece of cloth falling over him. Turning around, he saw his companion had used his distraction to change into a tight little black silk robe that opened just enough to reveal a red lacy bra and panty set.

"Well, we still have tonight to relax after that trip. And it was real frustrating not being able to go wild on that boat, so come here!" exclaimed the young woman as she beckoned her partner towards her with a sultry smirk that he answered in kind as he discarded his own clothes to join her on the bed.

(0o0o0)

"You seem kind of jumpy today, Naruto. Is something wrong?" asked Urd as she caught the hanyou twitching for the fifth time at sudden noises.

"I'm sorry, Urd-sensei, but I think I'm picking up on something that's setting off my instincts and training to put me on edge," said Naruto.

Urd considered the situation for a moment before grabbing a piece of paper and scribbling a note on it. "Well, go see Hotaru-sensei and check if you've got anything wrong with you just to be safe," she said before pulling a bottle of green goop out from within her lab coat. "Or I could feed you some herbal remedies."

The tanned goddess trailed off as Naruto took the note and grabbed his school bag on the off chance he was sent home before saying, "Thanks, Urd-sensei," and heading out of the room. He could feel Hinata's eyes following him the whole way to the door and knew she would be forcing him to take it easy the rest of the day if Hotaru did find anything wrong with him.

(0o0o0)

"Well, you don't have a fever and my magic doesn't find anything wrong with you," said Hotaru about half an hour later once she finished running every test she could think of on Naruto. "I don't think you're sick, but you should probably try to take it a little slower than normal for the next few days."

Naruto nodded. "Thanks, Hotaru-sensei, now hopefully Hinata-chan won't interpret that as me being confined to bed rest, I really hate having to re-open all my Tenketsu when she disables my ability to use chakra to keep me in bed."

The Senshi of Saturn giggled at Naruto's glum expression as he made his way out of her office before turning back to some papers her class had written for her.

(0o0o0)

"I hope Naruto-kun is okay," said Hinata as Urd left the classroom and Keiichi entered to start his physics lesson. Keiichi was setting up a plasma globe at the front of the room when the door opened and Naruto came back into the room. Nobody was really surprised to see Hinata seem to teleport to Naruto's side and start feeling his forehead. An amused Keiichi simply watched as Hinata asked Naruto a series of rapid fire questions and used her medical ninjutsu to examine him as thoroughly as she could.

"Alright, Hinata, if you are finished playing doctor with Naruto, can the two of you get back to your seats?" asked Keiichi. Hinata blushed but returned to her seat while Naruto did the same. "Alright, class, today we're going to be learning about plasma, the fourth state of matter. Plasma is created by heating a gas to ionize its molecules, thus creating positive and negative ions of the gas. This plasma globe is filled with various noble gases and has a high voltage electrode in the center. Now, if someone will hit the lights, you'll see plasma filaments when I turn this on…"

(0o0o0)

"Naruto, I think you should go see Dr. Tofu and see if something is messing with your aura," said Akira as the group walked out of school several hours later and the blonde hanyou was still looking bad.

Naruto sighed and placed his hand on his forehead for a moment before nodding. "You're right, Akira, this might be something really obscure Hotaru-sensei and Hinata-chan wouldn't be able to pick up on. I'll catch up to you guys in a bit, but don't be surprised if I'm stuck at the doc's office for a while," said the blond before splitting off from the main group and heading towards Dr. Tofu's office. However, as soon as he was out of sight of his friends he leapt up to the nearest roof tops and assumed a ready stance.

"I appreciate you guys keeping my friends out of this," said Naruto as eight forms shimmered into existence around him. All of them were dressed similar to the ANBU back in Konoha were aside from the fact that they wore a brown under suit and their armor was a dark black. Unlike Konoha who used animal motifs for each mask, Iwa used chips of gems on an otherwise featureless faces with only eye slits for features. Naruto saw amethyst, jade, turquoise, lapis lazuli, onyx, topaz, jasper, garnet, and aquamarine.

"Well, damn, I didn't think Peero would be able to convince Iwa to send anyone after me, but two BOULDER squads just for me? And equipped with stealth seals on your armor to negate the chakra sensing abilities of Ero-sennin, Hinata-chan, me, and leaving me with only my yokai instincts to tell me you're here." Naruto sighed as the eight assassins didn't respond to his banter and instead each unsheathed a ninjato and assumed an attack stance.

"I guess we're doing this the hard way," he said before dropping a smoke bomb to the ground to cover his escape back down to street level where he hit the ground running and tried to put some distance between the assassins and himself. The eight Iwa assassins were in immediate pursuit and were quick to learn just why the ANBU back in Konoha had dreaded being on call when Naruto pulled a massive prank and ran for it. The only difference was Naruto knew the Konoha ANBU would never seriously hurt him. The BOULDER squads were out for blood if the kunai and shuriken flying past him as he used ninja wire to yank himself into a side street and avoid the attack. The eight Iwa Shinobi rounded the corner and spotted Naruto running down the alley and took off in pursuit, not noticing the small bulge hidden behind a camouflage cloth beside a dumpster. As soon as the Iwa Shinobi had reached the right distance, Naruto tossed down the cloth while hurling a handful of shuriken with a cry of, "Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

The Iwa Shinobi spun around to see a wall of steel hurtling towards them and the one closest to the oncoming barrage flipped through the hand seals for tiger, hare, boar, and dog before yelling, "Doton: Doryūheki (Earth Style: Earth-Style Wall)!" and spitting out a stream of mud that rapidly rose up into a solid rock wall. As the sounds of the shuriken hitting the wall died down, four of the Iwa Shinobi leapt over the wall to charge Naruto, only to see the blond forming a half ram seal with a smirk on his face.

"You guys should look before you leap!" yelled Naruto before the clone shuriken embedded in the wall detonated in a giant ball of fire that sent the Iwa Shinobi flying while seals on the alley way walls reflected the force of the explosion away from the buildings and into the air with the flames. One of the first things Naruto had done after it was determined they were staying in Nerima for the next two years was set up several traps with Jiraiya's help so that if Akatsuki did come after him he could lead them through a gauntlet of obstacles long enough for help to arrive. Naruto figured since the traps were meant to hold off S-rank ninja, eight ANBU level ninja wouldn't escape unscathed from everything.

(0o0o0)

"What was that?" gasped Akira as a massive fireball rose up into the air.

Hinata activated her Byakugan and froze as she saw the Iwa Shinobi recovering and chasing after Naruto. "Fuck!" she gasped before charging off towards the fleeing blonde.

"How bad do you think it is?" asked Kimiko.

"Considering Hinata cursed, very bad," said Miyuki grimly. "We'd better tell dad quick!"

(0o0o0)

"I'msorryI'llbringitbacklaterthankyoouuuuu!" yelled Naruto as he snagged a can of spray paint from a wannabe gangsta who was about to tag a wall. "On second thought, maybe not," continued Naruto as he used a kunai to pin the gangsta wannabe to the wall and grabbed a few other cans of paint from by his feet before hurrying on. Jasper caught up to Naruto a minute later and got a blast of red spray paint on his mask that covered the eye slits and caused him to crash into a light post. A few seconds later, Topaz found out that pressurized cans plus fox fire makes for a decent paint and shrapnel bomb and gave him a rainbow outfit to boot. The Onyx ninja had time to see Naruto dart into a doorway before skidding to a halt with chakra and followed him in past a desk with an attendant who was staring with wide eyes at the flash of blonde just entering a room. The BOULDER ninja darted through the same door and found himself in a cloud of steam. Barely able to see a figure facing away from him, Onyx lunged forward.

"Got you, brat!" growled Onyx, only to find himself facing the female members of the Nerima Wrecking Crew and inadvertently groping a naked Akane as a smirking Naruko climbed out a window at the back of the female only bath. Onyx released the blue black haired woman he had grabbed by accident, and tried to bull rush past the women, only to get Akane's metal war hammer to the face followed by Shampoo's bonbori and Ukyo's battle spatula.

"Naruko, next time keep your problems outside the bath house!" yelled Akane as she casually snapped the Onyx ninja's arm when he tried to pull a kunai. The Saotome matriarch followed this up with a crushing grip on both the man's hands, preventing him from using any hand seals.

"Will do, Akane-sensei, but I've still got seven guys on my tails," said Naruko before slipping out the window and making her way to the closest trap while the trapped assassin whimpered in pain.

(0o0o0)

"Eight chakra signatures, all at least Kakashi-sensei's level, primarily earth affinities, one taken out by Akane-sensei and the rest going still going after Naruto-kun," muttered Hinata as she tried to catch up to Naruto and his pursuers. "Even odds they're Iwa, but the question is if Peero hired them or they're just after Naruto-kun and ambushed him when he was alone." Seeing where Naruto was heading, Hinata sped up in hopes of reaching him in time to help.

(0o0o0)

A quick splash of hot water from a thermos stored in her hammer space arsenal had changed Naruko back into Naruto and the blonde was making his way across the rooftops of Nerima with the remaining seven BOULDER pursuing him. Naruto was dodging the kunai and shuriken thrown at him while at the same time returning fire with blasts of fox fire. The blond led his pursuers to the abandoned Honda building where he'd faced Gin. Jiraiya had seen the potential of the place as a trap filled obstacle course and purchased the building outright. The more Naruto learned at Furinkan and from Jiraiya, the more he added to the traps until he was fairly confident he could at least stall the more experienced ninja until help arrived. "Come and get me, suckers!" yelled Naruto as he darted into the building, a seal tossed behind him creating a temporary barrier than let him gain some more distance.

After a few minutes of pounding against the barrier with fists encased in stone, the BOULDER team was rewarded with seeing the barrier shatter and allowing them entry into the building. Darting in, the team looked around for their target. "There he is!" yelled Lapis as he caught a glimpse of Naruto peeking around a corner and hurled a kunai at the blonde. Naruto yanked his head back and ran down the hall he'd been hiding in, with the BOULDER team in fast pursuit. Balls of fox fire leapt from Naruto's hands as he ran down the hall and struck the fire sprinklers lining the roof of the hall. The sprinklers immediately started spraying water into the hall and as Naruto darted through the door at the end, Naruto slapped his hand against a scroll by the door and unleashed a torrent of water down the hall that swept the BOULDER nin back and gave Naruto time to slam the door shut.

Topaz was the last ninja in the group and had just managed to get enough of the spray paint off his mask to avoid obstacles, but it was only thanks to the water coming down from the sprinklers that he was able to finally clear his vision and took off his mask a moment to make sure he had cleared off all the paint. As such, he was the only one who had a clear view of the roof of the hall above the door Naruto had shut and the rune etched into the ceiling. Before he could shout a warning to his team, Jade passed under the rune and a bolt of lightning shot down from the rune and through the ninja and into the water. The result was the entire team getting a very shocking experience as their soaked bodies and the ankle deep water flooding the hallway allowed the electricity to fill the whole hall and make them all collapse from the sudden locking up of their muscles as the electricity fired all their nerves. After a few moments of spasming in the shallow water, the team managed to climb to their feet and Aquamarine reached for the door knob. As soon as his hand closed on the metal knob, he got a second jolt from the electric lines Naruto had rigged up to the other side of the knob. Even though he was still slightly twitching Jasper rushed forward and knocked Aquamarine away with a rock covered fist and smashed the door open, breaking the door and circuit. "I want that brat's tails as a scarf!" growled the Jasper ninja.

(0o0o0)

"ACHOOO! I think they're bad mouthing me," said Naruto with a grin.

(0o0o0)

"Spread out! Find that little brat!" growled Jasper. The team split up, each one going in different directions.

(0o0o0)

"Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly," whispered Naruto as he prepared his next trap.

(0o0o0)

As Amethyst opened the door he chose, he found himself in what used to be a cafeteria for employees with all his senses on alert for signs of Naruto's passage. He was rewarded with the sound of a slight creak, as if a door was being carefully closed in an attempt at stealth. Dashing through the empty eating area, Amethyst leapt over the serving counter and found himself in the middle of the food preparation area. Feeling a bit of chill in the air, the man glanced at the large walk in fridge and smirked to see it not quite closed tight. Slinking to the door, the Iwa ninja yanked it open while leaping into the door way to catch Naruto by surprise. Instead of a cornered fox boy, the Iwa ninja was greeted by a freezing cold gust of icy wind that slammed into him and tossed him to the far wall by the old oven. Now shivering from the intense cold pounding into him constantly, the Iwa ninja found it hard to climb to his feet as frost started forming on the floor around him and grabbed a handle on the oven to help pull himself up. Instantly, the refrigerator door slammed shut as the wind cut off and the oven burst into flames that engulfed the Iwa Shinobi. Frantically rolling on the ground to extinguish the flames, the BOULDER ninja spotted a bucket in the kitchen sink and grabbed it to douse any remaining flames on himself. He had just enough time to register the smell of peanut oil before the now flaming liquid had covered him. Once again rolling frantically on the ground to douse the flame, Amethyst suddenly found himself being sprayed with white foam that extinguished the flames. The Iwa ninja could only moan as footsteps approached him and he felt his gut grow cold as he saw Naruto standing over him with a red cylinder in his hands. The fox boy raised the depleted fire extinguisher and brought it crashing down on Amethyst's head, causing him to see stars and then blackness.

(0o0o0)

Jade, who happened to be the smallest of the team, froze as he heard a slight sound coming from an air vent in the hall he was following. Not lifting his feet lest he betray his position, he slowly made his way towards a nearby air vent and grinned when he saw that the cover was slightly ajar. 'The little fox made a mistake,' thought the man before forming several hand signs and ending with the snake seal. His body grew wet before softening into a mud like substance, allowing him to slide into the air vent easily. Hearing the sound of sudden movement up ahead, the BOULDER ninja swarmed forward and into a large ventilation shaft running up the building. Reforming into his normal form, the man grinned as a surprised looking Naruto hurriedly assumed a battle stance. "Try it boy, I'll crush you!" exclaimed the man as his fists morphed into giant spiked rocks.

"Dude, I've faced off against Orochimaru and survived, you think I'm scared of you?" countered Naruto.

"You should be, you should be," said Jade before he punched the ground and sent a shockwave at Naruto, who flipped over the attack and dashed forward. "Getting close to my rock fists is foolish!" roared the BOULDER nin as he swung one of his giant fists at Naruto.

"Bakusai Tenketsu (Breaking Point)!" yelled Naruto as his finger darted out and tapped the giant stone fist, causing it to instantly shatter into fragments that pelted the Iwa ninja in the face. The momentary surprise and blindness from the barrage allowed Naruto to form a Rasengan and slam it into the Iwa ninja's chest. Jade had managed to form a layer of rock armor that protected him, but the force of the jutsu still sent him crashing backwards into the wall of the ventilation shaft. Slumping to the ground, the Iwa ninja had just a moment to see he had landed on a giant purple rune circle that started glowing. "Enjoy the Reverse Gravity trap I learned in school," said Naruto with a smirk before the rune circle sent Jade rocketing into the air. Seals on the sides of the ventilation shaft started glowing before gusts of wind buffeted the Iwa ninja in several directions at once before sending him upwards.

*Warning, not for the faint of heart due to gruesome death*

The tug of a strand of ninja wire around Jade's neck caused him to flip around facing the ceiling and he had just enough time to see the approaching giant razor sharp fan blade spinning away and scream.

Naruto whipped out an umbrella just before blood rained down from above him, painting the sides of the ventilation shaft red.

*Gore is over*

Naruto waited a few seconds before sticking his hand out and grabbing the severed head of the Iwa ninja as it fell back down in front of him. "Alas poor dumbass, he underestimated the prankster king of Konoha," said Naruto before sealing the head in a scroll.

(0o0o0)

Turquoise winced as he made his way through the halls. He'd gotten hit by some shrapnel from Naruto's first trap in the alley way and while the injury wasn't threatening, running around with a hunk of metal in your side is never comfortable. Spotting a minor genjutsu on the wall, the assassin sent out a low level chakra pulse that shattered the illusion and revealed a large first aid kit secured to the wall. Smirking at using Naruto's stash of supplies to heal himself, the Turquoise ninja opened the large white container only to get hit by a giant boxing glove that shot out of the seal inside the box. Staggering from the blow, Turquoise groaned before looking up at the sound of laughter and seeing Naruto peeking around the base of the stairs at the end of the hall. The blond smirked and ran up the stairs with the Iwa ninja in hot pursuit. However, despite putting all the speed on he could, the Iwa ninja found Naruto was always rounding the corner ahead of him and continuing up the stairs. "Little bastard is probably using Hiraishin!" growled the BOULDER nin as Naruto didn't seem the least bit winded by the chase. Finally reaching the top floor he saw he was in the executive office area with six closed doors opening into a small hallway. Drawing his ninjato, the Iwa ninja made his way to the first door and opened it to find himself in a room with Naruto holding a fist sized orange ball and all the walls painted blue. "What kind of trap is this?" asked Turquoise with amusement in his voice.

"This is the Super Happy Fun Ball!" exclaimed Naruto before he threw the ball at Turquoise. Being the elite ninja he was, Turquoise easily dodged the rubber ball and reached for his ninjato, only to have something hit the back of his head with the force of a punch that caused him to stagger. He barely caught a glimpse of the ball ricocheting off a wall and towards Naruto at a much faster speed than the blonde had thrown it before the ball bounced off Naruto, who grunted and went poof, before rapidly accelerating so Turquoise felt like he was in the middle of a pinball game with each hit the same as a high level ninja punching or kicking him.

(0o0o0)

A few minutes later, the door to the locker room opened and the bruised and beaten form of Turquoise fell out. Strangely, the door rolled up like a scroll before disappearing. The BOULDER ninja groaned as every part of his body felt like a giant bruise. His moans of pain suddenly shifted to a shriek as Naruto poked him with a stick. "Damn, I wasn't expecting you to be this beat up," said Naruto as he kept poking the downed ninja.

"Little brat!" roared the BOULDER ninja as he focused all his rage on trying to grab and choke Naruto. The blonde easily evaded the sloppy attack and ran into one of the other doors with the battered BOULDER ninja in pursuit, only for the Iwa ninja to stumble to a halt at the sight of an Escher painting like room. Naruto was already running up a set of stairs in midair that curled around to make Naruto be upside down. Turquoise popped a blood and chakra replenishing pill before he channeled chakra to his feet and took off after Naruto. The blond led the Iwa ninja through several doors, up and down many sets of stairs, and along walls for almost half an hour. Finally, Turquoise found his chakra growing low and he grabbed onto a nearby banister in case he was about to fall. Naruto kept running for a few moments before realizing his pursuer had stopped chasing him and turned back to see the Iwa ninja staring at him. While Naruto couldn't see the man's face through his mask, the kitsune teen had a feeling there was a look of incredulousness on the man's face. "How are you not out of chakra?" gasped the Iwa ninja.

Naruto started holding up fingers as he listed off points. "One, hanyou, very large chakra reserves. Two, gravity seals on my shoes keep me anchored. Three, even if the seals fail, this place is basically created from a MAZE spell combined with seals to wrap it around the room, so every surface has its own gravity orientation. I haven't been using chakra at all."

"I hate you," groaned the Iwa ninja, only to gulp as Naruto smirked and started walking towards him. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Technically, you're off the plane forming the stairs and thus in a zone with a different gravity orientation," said Naruto as he reached the confused ninja while pulling out a parchment scroll. "This is a scroll of grease, care to guess what the spell does?" The Iwa ninja's head started shaking as Naruto held the scroll up. "Too bad, you guys really shouldn't have chased me into this building, these traps are designed to take out S-class missing ninja," Said Naruto as the scroll glowed and a coating of grease spread across the banister. The Iwa ninja struggled to maintain his grip, but without chakra to counteract the grease he didn't stand a chance and found himself falling for a moment before he hit a stair. For a moment he thought he was safe, but the sound of rushing water above him had him looking up in time to see a veritable water fall pouring down towards him. "Enjoy the wash cycle!" exclaimed Naruto with a grin before he vanished in a puff of smoke as the water slammed into the Iwa ninja. Turquoise was swept up in the deluge and carried throughout the room thanks to seals propelling the water along at breakneck speeds.

(0o0o0)

The door to the Escher room slowly opened and the bruised and soaked BOULDER ninja staggered out and collapsed in the hallway. Hearing the sounds of a struggle, he turned his head enough to see his Topaz masked team mate staggering out of another room with a wolverine mauling him. The Iwa ninja managed to rip the wolverine from his body and hurl it back into the room he'd exited, causing it to roll up and vanish. "He got you too?" asked Turquoise, now noticing there were only two doors left in the hall.

"First room had a bunch of weapons that suddenly animated and attacked me," said Topaz with irritation clear in his voice. "The second one, the brat was in there with a rust colored bag, he reached in a pulled at a little fuzzy ball and tossed it at me. I was laughing until it turned into a boar in mid air and charged me in an attempt to gore me. As soon as I killed it with a kunai in the eye, he's already tossing another fuzz ball and this one becomes a freaking bear! He used another boar and a wolf to herd me away from the entrance and then he tossed the wolverine, I managed to roll out of there since the rooms vanish when we exit."

"I think he's using clones to trick us," said Turquoise as his team mate started doing a medical jutsu.

"Most likely. He's displayed a surprising versatility for the technique despite it being a Jonin level one," agreed Topaz.

"So, toss explosives into the last two rooms?" suggested Turquoise. Topaz nodded and the two ninja moved to the two remaining doors and yanked them open before tossing a bundle of explosive notes into each one. The resulting explosions didn't shake the building and the doors both rolled up. However, the end of the hall shimmered and a genjutsu fell revealing a surprised Naruto sitting in a small room munching on a bucket of popcorn.

"Uh, hey guys, enjoy the rides?" asked Naruto as the two ninja pulled their ninjato before lunging at him. Naruto tried to draw Nenshousaiga, but the small size of the room kept him from getting the blade free of the sheath and up to block. The two BOULDER ninja were surprised as Naruto suddenly grinned before they passed right through him and slammed into a metal wall face first before sliding to the floor of the metal room.

"I'm going to kill him slowly," growled Topaz as he helped Turquoise to his feet, only to turn as they heard a pair of metal doors close behind them. A panel in the ceiling opened to show a smirking Naruto with Nenshousaiga poised to cut a thick metal cable holding what the two Iwa ninja now realized was an elevator up.

"Just so you guys know, we're at the eighth and top floor," said Naruto before Nenshousaiga cut the cable. The fox boy held onto the cable as the elevator plummeted down eight stories.

(0o0o0)

"I'm going to get you, brat!" growled Jasper as he chased Naruto down a hallway. The Iwa ninja had been running after Naruto for the last half hour through an outside garden area meant for lunches that had been transformed into a veritable jungle thanks to Naruto using spells to make the plants grow out of control. Naruto had been in his element, setting snares, pitfalls, dead falls, spiked log traps, and branches pulled back to hurl kunai and shuriken, the standard Konoha forest warfare methods. Jasper had quickly learned that Naruto was pretty good at using multiple layers in his traps to trap his enemy no matter what way they evaded each one.

"You'll have to try better than that, little man," taunted Naruto as he led Jasper back into the main building and down a corridor, only to find himself at a dead end with rock barriers springing up to cover any other exits.

"Just you and me now," said Jasper with a grin as he stalked towards Naruto, his Ninjato covered in the juices of the plants he'd been hacking his way through. Pushing chakra to his legs, Jasper charged forward and plunged his blade into Naruto's chest, causing the fox boy to stagger backwards. Jasper grinned beneath his mask, only to feel Naruto grab him as the blond fell backwards through a tarp and into a dark shaft.

"Idiot, I'm a clone," said 'Naruto' before he popped and left Jasper alone at the bottom of the shaft. Hearing a screeching noise, the BOULDER ninja looked up and saw the bottom of an elevator car plummeting towards him with a giant hand giving him the finger painted on the bottom.

"Oh shi…" Jasper's curse was cut off as he was crushed beneath the descending elevator.

(0o0o0)

In the front office of the death trap filled office building, a trash can was enveloped in a puff of smoke and revealed Naruto. The blond had been monitoring all his clones and making sure he accounted for each member of the BOULDER team. The last three were currently on the fourth floor dealing with the remaining three ninja who had decided to work together. "Ick," said Naruto as he peeked into the top of the elevator car. Turquoise and Topaz were sprawled on the floor with their necks at unnatural angles inside the car and if what his nose was telling him was true, Jasper now resembled a pancake. "Time to get out of here," said Naruto as he dashed out the door, hoping his clones could handle the rest of the BOULDER unit. His hopes were quickly dashed as the sound of glass shattering revealed the three remaining BOULDER ninja breaking through the office window buildings to pursue Naruto outside. The blonde dropped to all fours and poured chakra into his limbs to turn into a blonde blur and avoid a barrage of kunai and shuriken the three ninja hurled at him.

"Damn fox is fast," grunted Garnet before slamming his hands into the ground. "Doton: Doryuso (Earth Style: Earth Flow Spears!" yelled the BOULDER ninja, causing rock spikes to erupt right in front of Naruto. The blonde skidded to a halt with a growl to avoid being skewered.

Naruto lunged to the side, only to find himself running into a dead end alleyway. The blond prepared to charge up the alley wall using chakra, but as he got halfway up, a giant earth fist swatted him down to the street. Shaking his head, Naruto saw a giant earth golem standing over him, but the real concern was the crystals embedded in it that were glowing with spiritual chakra. "Damn, a yokai slaying golem, I thought all those were destroyed ages ago." muttered Naruto with a grimace.

"Do you really think with your mother being the strongest of the Bijuu we wouldn't look into ways of neutralizing her?" asked Aquamarine from the roof above the alley where he was holding the ram hand seal. "This golem has already slain several yokai and you will be its next victim."

"Heh, I've got to admit, you guys must be pretty good if the Tsuchikage entrusted you with such a potent artifact. But you're forgetting a few things," said Naruto as his hanyou features slowly shrank away. "Number one, I'm part human, so that thing can't drain away all my yoki to kill me. Number two, I'm a trained ninja, not some beast used to always having the upper hand against humans. And number three is the biggest mistake you made."

"And what's that?" asked Aquamarine in a taunting voice.

"I'm not the only Konoha Shinobi in town," said Naruto with a smirk.

With a cry of "Tsutenkyaku!" Hinata plummeted down and delivered a powerful falling axe kick that cleaved through the golem from head to toe. "I will kill you if you touch him!" growled Hinata as chakra formed a lion head around each of her hands.

"Do not come between BOULDER and our target, we will crush you and leave you broken in our wake," said Lapis as he and Garnet blocked off the opening of the alleyway. "The boy is weakened and the three of us are more than a match for you."

"Three guys against one girl seems a bit harsh, mind if we even the odds?" asked a girl's voice that shifted into a cry of, "Yoton: Sekkaigyo no Jutsu (Lava Style: Quicklime Congealing)!" before a blob of grey cement like material shot down and hit Lapis. A girl in an Iwagakure Chuunin outfit landed beside Hinata before flipping through the hand seals for Dragon, Tiger, and Rabbit and raising her hands to her mouth. "Suiton: Mizurappa (Water Style: Water Trumpet)!" yelled the girl as she shot a large blast of water from her mouth that caused the grey substance to harden around Lapis and the BOULDER ninja to scream in pain as the substance burned him.

"Traitor!" yelled Garnet as he charged the girl, only to find himself being batted away by a pair of nunchaku wielded by a Hawk winged teen that Naruto recognized.

"Takajou (Falconer), what the hell are you doing here?" yelled Naruto as the son of the Yonbi twirled his weapons.

"Saving your butt, fox boy," said the hawk hanyou with a smirk.

Aquamarine had been stunned by the destruction of the golem he'd been controlling, but now finished a string of hand seals and glared down into the alleyway from his rooftop perch. "You two traitors will die with the fox and the bitch!" he roared as the remains of the golem swirled into the air and formed a giant spike ball. "Even if it is destroyed, our golem can still purify and kill a yokai with its remains! Earth Style: Pure Earth Meteor!"

Takajou had already started flipping through hand seals and finished with the Snake before forming a small cube containing a slightly smaller sphere between his hands. "Jinton: Genkai Hakuri no Jutsu (Dust Style: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique)!" yelled the hawk hanyou before thrusting his hands up and sending the cube between them into the air, where it expanded to engulf the giant spiked ball before the small sphere exploded and destroyed the contents of the cube. "Hehehehehe, how's that?" he asked.

Aquamarine was about to start another string of hand seals only to be blasted off the roof by Jiraiya driving a Rasengan into his back. "You guys should have done your homework better. Do you really think the Gallant Jiraiya wouldn't come running to protect his latest apprentice?" asked the toad Sannin casually as he approached Aquamarine. The Iwa ninja tried to leap away, only to be smashed to the ground by Jiraiya driving an axe kick into his back. Takajou whistled at the old man's display of strength as the Iwa kunoichi created a stone gauntlet to knock out Lapis before releasing him from the quicklime.

Being the last one free, Garnet tried to escape the alley only to have Hinata appear in front of him, the chakra lion heads on her hands seeming to roar as she cried, "Juho Soshiken (Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists)!" and drove the first lion into his chest and caused him to stagger before she spun around him and slammed the second one into his back, sending him sprawling face down in the middle of the alley.

"Hehehehe, looks like both our girlfriends kick ass," said Naruto with a grin at Takajou before everything started to grow blurry and went dark to the worried cries of Hinata being the last thing he heard.

(0o0o0)

Naruto regained consciousness in the Tendo dojo and found Kagome and Hinata both holding their hands over his chest. He could feel his yoki refilling rapidly as well as his body recovering from the purification, though his foxy features were still suppressed. A quick glance at the calendar on the wall told him the reason. "Kagome-sensei, you can stop adding yoki; my human night is tomorrow and having a bunch of extra yoki that I didn't produce naturally in my system would not be good," muttered Naruto as he lightly grabbed the inu miko's hand to halt the flow of energy from her. Kagome glanced over where Inuyasha was leaning against the wall and saw him nod.

"Okay, Naruto, but we're going to get you back into shape, your chakra is dangerously low according to Hinata," said Kagome.

"I can tell it's been less than a day, but how long have I been out?" asked Naruto.

"A few hours," replied Inuyasha. "Jiraiya dragged the four ninja still among the living off for interrogation and said he'd get back to us later. Tenchi, Ranma, and the rest of the ladies are patrolling the area for any back up the ninja had. That hawk kid and the girl with him are waiting downstairs and want to talk to you when Kagome clears you for visitors."

"Give me a few minutes to gather some natural chakra for storing up my reserves and I'll be fit enough for the next few days, though I'll probably need to stay home from school for a few days," said Naruto as he lay back down. "Heh, this will actually be faster than usual, having to keep all my tails still is a pain in the butt whenever I do this," said Naruto before chuckling at his unintentional pun.

(0o0o0)

"So this is where you've been hiding, Rōshi-san," said Takajou in the living room as he stared at the container of the fire ape. "We've been looking for you for some time."

Rōshi chuckled as he sipped from a saucer of sake. "Yeah, Naruto inadvertently rescued me and I've been hanging around here since. Jiraiya-san and I enjoy being the wise elders that dispatch our wisdom to the kids around here."

"And you get to be his beta reader for Icha Icha," said the girl with a smirk, causing Rōshi to grin with a slight blush on his face.

"I can neither confirm nor deny that accusation," said Rōshi.

"So I take it you know these two, Rōshi-san?" asked Naruto as he made his way down the stairs with Hinata following along behind him.

"Yeah, you obviously know Takajou from what I hear, but the girl is Kurotsuchi, granddaughter of the Sandaime Tsuchikage Onoki," said Rōshi as he gestured to the Iwa Kunoichi. "I left when the new Tsuchikage took over from Onoki. The young guy was only interested in using me as a weapon and wanted to make me into a mindless beast he could unleash on Konoha."

"Ah, about that, Grandpa led a rebellion against Gecchouseki Katashi (Moonstone Firm)," said Kurotsuchi. "Pops learned about Katashi accepting a mission to assassinate Naruto and knew that his parents would retaliate against Iwa. So he led the rebellion to save the village while sending the two of us to intercept the assassins."

"And why did the two of you accept this mission? Most of your village would cheer to hear about my death," said Naruto.

"Well, we both have the bond of being the sons of a Bijuu," said Takajou.

Kurotsuchi squirmed a bit in her seat before sighing and saying, "I also owe your father a life debt. My mother is a medic and had just returned to the front lines during the Third Shinobi World War the day your father slaughtered all our troops. But he spared my mother and the other medics plus the patients they were tending, including my father. My mom says I was conceived that night in the rush of emotions from surviving a near death experience."

Naruto's cheeks gained a slight red tint at the implications of Kurotsuchi's statement. "Ok, I can buy that. Old man Onoki must trust both your skills a lot if he sent just the two of you."

"He should, blood is thicker than water and I'm his apprentice," said Takajou. "He's the one who taught me Jinton (Dust Style) when he found I had all three elements necessary for it. I get Earth from my dad, Fire from my shaman mother, and Wind from Hichou-oka-san."

"I've heard of the Jinton Kekkei Tota (Bloodline Selection) from my father, but I wasn't aware it could be passed onto someone not related by blood," said Naruto.

Takajou shrugged as he explained, "I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure the Nidaime Tsuchikage and Onoki-sensei weren't related at all."

"So anyone can combine three elements together," muttered Naruto before shrugging. "Well, I'm glad you guys were here, another minute and those jerks would have had me." Seeing the terrified look growing on Hinata's face he grimaced. "That golem was built with crystals on it that sucked up my yoki faster than an Akimichi eats food. And that's if any old ninja is using it. That Aquamarine guy must have had training as a monk or priest to make it pump out purifying spiritual power to keep my yoki from regenerating."

Jiraiya entered the room with a grimace on his face. "Well kids, good news, bad news time. The good news is the four BOULDER ninja you didn't kill all sang like canaries. The bad news is this is a very delicate situation politically. Even if Ryotenbin no Onoki (Onoki of Both Scales) the legendary Fence Sitter has taken back control of Iwa, these guys were on an official mission from their village and people eager to hurt Naruto and his family might pursue the mission or go the missing ninja route to get to him. This leads to the not good but not bad news that I'm upping your training until you can match these guys on your own. Naruto, I'll want a hundred clones working on seal work with me each day while you're at school, another hundred working on nature manipulation for the elements you haven't mastered, and a third set of one hundred working on chakra control. Hinata, I know you can only manage one or two clones, but we'll have them work on a special project with me that will increase your battlefield potential exponentially thanks to this scroll Tsunade entrusted to me." The white haired Sannin held up a scroll that caused Hinata's eyes to widen after she unrolled it a bit before she nodded in agreement.

"Well, any training for me will have to wait until tomorrow, I'm drained enough I just want to rest," said Naruto before looking at Takajou and Kurotsuchi. "And what will the two of you be doing?" he asked.

Kurotsuchi smirked and snaked her arm around Takajou's. "We're going to take advantage of the honeymoon suite we rented for a few days and then head back to the Elemental nations," she said, causing the Iwa shinobi to blush, Jiraiya to give his usual perverted grin, and Rōshi to roar in laughter as Naruto and Hinata both gained a red tint to their cheeks.

(0o0o0)

True to Naruto's words, his kitsune features didn't make a reappearance until after his human night passed. Even then, he still needed to call in sick due to his chakra system being out of balance for the next day. Hinata had just arrived back at Kitsune-su with his homework for the day when she heard a knock at the door. Setting Naruto's notes and assignments down on the living room table, Hinata went to the door to reveal an orange nine tailed kitsune beside a blonde woman in a leather catsuit. "Hi, I'm Hanzo and I need to speak to my cousin Naruto," said the kitsune with a smile.

**Well, that's it for this chapter, hopefully I can get the next one out faster, but don't count on it since I'm playing Assassin's Creed 3 on my 360. However, the events of the game kind of lend themselves to a few parts of the chapter so it might come out sooner.**


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